It’s become a secondary sport around these parts — particularly on sports talk radio littered with armchair general managers — to second-guess our teams’ personnel decisionmakers.
We’re seeing it right now with the Giants, a year after their general manager Joe Schoen was lauded for his 2022 draft when he got edge rusher Kayvon Thibodeaux and tackle Evan Neal with his first two picks, now Schoen is being criticized for missing on those players because their respective performances haven’t been commensurate with where they were taken in the draft.
General managers have become as culpable as quarterbacks when their teams lose and the players they selected or signed aren’t performing well.
In September 2021, Jets general manager Joe Douglas quietly made what was a rather unheralded claim off waivers when he acquired linebacker Quincy Williams. At the time, the prevailing thought among many Jets followers was that it merely was a move to make his younger brother, defensive tackle Quinnen Williams, more comfortable.
It seemed like a nice little story and nothing more.
That move on the part of Douglas, though, has proven to be much more than a feel-good family story, a maneuver to placate Quinnen.
You can make the argument right now that, with the way he’s playing, Quincy may be even more valuable than his more-decorated (Pro Bowl and All-Pro in 2022) and more highly paid (four years, $96 million) brother Quinnen.
Consider the following words from Jets defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich last week.
“I would challenge everyone here and elsewhere that there’s not a better ’backer in the NFL right now,” Ulbrich said. “He is playing at an elite level in my opinion, and it’s just so exciting to see for the young man, because he’s a guy who just works so hard at it, it’s so important to him. The kid is working his ass off.”
These comments were made before Quincy Williams sealed the Jets’ 31-21 win over the Broncos Sunday in Denver with a sack and forced fumble that was scooped up by Bryce Hall for a touchdown return late in the game.
Williams finished that game with two sacks, nine tackles (one for a loss) and three quarterback hits. He’s third in the league with 48 tackles, which has him on pace to make 163 tackles for the season.
Williams will be a critical piece to the Jets’ defense when they play the Eagles on Sunday at MetLife Stadium with their multitalented offense, led by quarterback Jalen Hurts, who’s always a threat to run and is elusive.
“He’s one of the fastest linebackers in the league,” fellow Jets linebacker C.J. Mosley said of Williams, comparing him to a cheetah stalking his prey before pouncing.
These were Williams’ words when describing his game-deciding strip-sack of Broncos quarterback Russell Wilson: “As soon as that play got called, I knew it was going to be a sack. When it got called, I said, ‘Oh yeah this is going to be a sack.’ No one’s outrunning me. I’m the fastest linebacker in the league.”
Williams was smiling when he spoke, because Williams is always smiling. It’s a rarity when he isn’t.
Williams’ uber-positive approach to the game and to life is infectious inside the Jets’ locker room. And it makes you wonder how Jacksonville, which drafted him in the third round in 2019, didn’t see in Williams what the Jets saw when their eyes lit up seeing him on the waiver wire.
“He’s light-hearted on and off the field, and that’s a great combo for us,” Mosley said.
“Some players, they get thrown away and they have to try to find their way,” head coach Robert Saleh said. “He stuck with it, kept working and he’s found his way. I’m so proud of him. He’s a game-wrecker at linebacker and we’re very fortunate that we have him.”
Without Williams, it’s possible the Jets don’t win that Denver game and are mired at 1-4 entering Sunday’s home game against a 5-0 Eagles team they’ve never defeated in franchise history.
“It’s always hard when you get cut, especially by the team that drafted you,” Ulbrich said. “You had such promise, this and that, and you can start questioning yourself. That’s just human nature. For him to come here and really just grind and put his nose down and work and prove every single day with the humility he has, and then to get paid what he got paid [he was awarded a three-year, $18 million contract this past offseason] … it’s really cool. All the accolades, as well as he’s playing, it’s not by accident.”
It was clearly an accident on the part of the Jaguars to let him go two years ago.
And, as we know now, it was neither an accident nor a gimmick on the part of Douglas and Saleh to make him a Jet. And that move, as quiet as it was at the time, is paying dividends. In a big way.