New York Jets defensive lineman Quinnen Williams recently shared images of himself with LeBron James.
New York Jets defensive tackle Quinnen Williams took to Twitter on Wednesday with pictures of himself posing with NBA legend LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers.
https://twitter.com/QuinnenWilliams/status/1466098629958160385?s=20
Although Big Q’s admiration is transparent, there’s another topic at play.
LeBron recently entered the NBA’s COVID-19 health and safety protocols, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. This means James, who is fully vaccinated, either tested positive for COVID-19, had a test come back inconclusively, and/or came into contact with somebody with the virus.
Players with Covid must be out 10 days, or return two negative PCR tests in a 24 hour period. For now, James will remain in the health and safety protocols.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) December 1, 2021
There is no imminent context as to when the two interacted, but there is also no news out of Florham Park in relation to Williams’ current status.
It is hard to imagine Williams would knowingly put himself at risk, which suggests a couple of things. The most likely outcome is that the encounter happened prior to the LeBron news—based on the timing of Big Q’s tweet.
Or, perhaps James has tested negative since first learning that he needed to enter the NBA’s COVID-19 health and safety protocols.
Wojnarowski states NBA players with COVID may return two negative PCR tests within 24 hours. This would avoid a 10-day downtime regardless of LeBron’s vaccination status.
The only issue is this: It hasn’t been 24 hours yet, at least not since the Wojnarowski news broke.
If Williams’ photos are in fact similarly recent to his post, then he would likely be a close contact. LeBron is fully vaccinated, but Williams’ vaccination status is still unknown. If any transmission did occur, it will likely surface soon.
Many would argue “GOAT” and “LeBron” don’t belong in the same bucket (which we leave for NBA Twitter to deal with), but you can’t argue Williams’ importance to the Jets’ defense. If something were to surface and he were to miss time, it would be another massive blow to the defensive personnel this year.
Williams is tied for second in sacks among defensive tackles with 6.0 in 11 games. He posted a career-high 7.0 sacks (Per PFF) in 13 games and is poised to rewrite that this year. In addition, he has 13 pressures and 5 quarterback hits.
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Williams remains a focal point — or as Jay Feely put it, “headliner” — of Gang Green’s defensive front, and hopefully he will be for years to come.
It is great to see a young star coming into his own both on and off the field, but one can only hope Williams can avoid any COVID-related setbacks down the stretch of his thrilling third NFL campaign.
