After Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers violated football regulations by running receiver Mike Williams the wrong route in a loss to the Bills, Williams took the high road.
After a stellar debut against the Cardinals with more yards than Davante Adams on Rodgers’ 13 targets and a touchdown on the Steelers’ one target, Williams is one step below the road. I stepped into it.
Williams celebrated his first game with the team he traded to last Tuesday in an Instagram post. Added 3 hashtags: (1) #WholeLotta; (2) #WeBack; (3) #RedLine.
The last was a direct reference to Rogers’ criticism. After Monday night’s loss to Buffalo, Williams told reporters he was supposed to be at the practice field’s “red line,” five yards from the sideline.
That contributed to trust issues between Rodgers and Williams. That’s not surprising. Because Rodgers has a history of not trusting receivers unless he gets it completely and completely and maintains it.
So when I spoke with Williams on the phone after Pittsburgh’s 28-27 win over the Commanders, I asked him what he did to immediately gain quarterback Russell Wilson’s trust. He trusted Williams enough to throw the ball the way he wanted with the game on the line.
“Throughout this week’s practice, I tried to gain confidence no matter what ball comes my way,” Williams said. “I just tried to make plays just to make him know that if he throws me the ball, he can trust me to throw him the ball, so the most important thing for me was to build that trust. It was about building.”
It was a play that led to the game-winning 32-yard score, a play Williams didn’t know was coming for him until the final moments.
“I knew I had a chance just being on the field. I knew it might be a one-on-one chance on the backside, but I was ready for anything,” Williams said. . “Honestly, I actually saw it at the last moment. I just checked the sky and saw it there and oh, I played with it.”
Indeed he did. And it shows the value of prioritizing touchdowns over success rate or touchdown-to-interception ratio.
But even if Williams were to run the wrong route for Wilson at some point, one thing is one million percent true: Wilson would never publicly criticize Williams for doing it. I’ll never be able to.
