New York Jets All-Pro defensive tackle Quinnen Williams quickly got a first taste of what the team’s new regime will be like.
After news broke that the Jets would move on from future Hall-of-Fame quarterback Aaron Rodgers in February, Williams took to social media to voice his displeasure about the decision.
“Another rebuild year for me, I guess,” Williams tweeted with an additional thumbs-down emoji.
New Jets head coach Aaron Glenn later said he spoke with Williams regarding the tweet. The defensive tackle has seemingly moved from his original comment, while also showing his own brand of leadership.
Quinnen Williams Addresses Immature Comments
Speaking to reporters after the second day of OTA workouts, Williams made it clear that he regretted those previous comments.
His conversations with Glenn certainly helped with that.
“It was an immature thing for me to do at the moment — out of emotions, out of frustration,” Williams said Wednesday afternoon. “I hadn’t talked to Aaron previous to that. Just looking at it as trying to grow as a leader.
“Talking to [Glenn], talking to the staff and everybody else, just [got] me super, super excited, and super, super confident that we’re going in the right direction to win football games, and to do the things that I want to do, to change the whole narrative of the New York Jets’ losing streak and playoff streak.”
Williams isn’t the first star player on a historically bad team to let their frustrations get the better of them over the years. How he handled the situation afterward, though, shows that the veteran is ready to become more than just an All-Pro with the Jets.
He wants to be part of the unit that ends New York’s losing streak for good.
All-Pro Similarities
Williams’ comments in February can be compared to the actions of Hall-of-Fame defensive tackle “Mean” Joe Greene of the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 1970s.
Greene has consistently told a story about how he walked out of the Steelers’ facility in 1974 because he doubted he could ever become a Super Bowl champion while playing for Pittsburgh.
Of course, the Steelers ended up winning the Super Bowl that year and becoming one of the greatest dynasties in football history.
But Greene’s “walk-out” on Pittsburgh that season shows the same kind of “immature” behavior that Williams spoke about on Wednesday. When that happened, the Hall-of-Fame tackle was actually a year older than the Jets star.
This isn’t to say that Williams is about to become Greene, or the Jets are going to win the Super Bowl. Greene’s story shows how badly NFL players want to win, and Williams is no exception.
The fact that the veteran tackle took the time to speak about his mistake, and how he has used that to improve, only shows how strong the Jets seem to be as a collective unit off the field – and how much more mature Williams has become.
