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When I first saw this headline, I thought maybe it was for a parody site, like “The Onion.”
Newsday headline – “Jets All-Pro Quincy Williams won’t offer ‘family discount’ to stay.” –
Family discount?
Are people watching this team closely?
I tweeted this yesterday, even before I saw this headline:
“Football is a sport, unlike baseball, where you can hide in plain sight as a player. People talk about players playing well who aren’t. It’s amazing.”
In baseball, you can’t hide. Everything is out in the open. Either you are hitting well or not. Either you are pitching well or not.
In football, we can have a perception that a player is playing well, who really isn’t.
Williams is a great guy, gives you everything he’s got, but he’s not playing well.
That Jacksonville game was a rough one. He seemed to be implicated in three touchdown passes to running back Travis Etienne.
Once again, the Jets’ run defense was terrible against New England, a team playing without its left guard and left tackle.
Jowon Briggs and Harrison Phillips, two impressive guys with great character, are being taught by the media, struggled getting on blocks on several big runs up the middle
On too many plays, Williams either took bad angles or got velcroed to blockers against the run in this game vs. the Pats. This is not a new thing, We have seen this quite a bit during his five years with the team, but it’s been glossed over.
Williams is tough as hell, and makes some nice plays here and there on blitzes and in run support if he has a clear path to the ball carrier, but there are too many negative plays on the film in between those highlights.
He will have a hard time landing a deal for much more than the veteran minimum with his 2025 film.
Perhaps something like a one-year $2 million somewhere.
Unless the Jets do what they did with Jamien Sherwood last year – paying a guy with suspect film three years, $45 million. That was a teachable moment for the first-year regime. Not sure what film the three-year, $45 million deal was based on.
I’m not trying to be mean-spirited during the holiday season. Williams is a good guy, but for goodness sake, can we deal with reality?
No discount? . . .
Brady Cook is an impressive young man, and whatever he does after his football career, he should be successful. He is the two-time SEC Football Scholar-Athlete of the Year.
And he realizes what an amazing opportunity he’s been afforded by Aaron Glenn to start the last four games of the season of an NFL season as a rookie, especially an undrafted one.
“I’m grateful for it, because any opportunity in this league is a great one,” Cook said.
It certainly is, and you never know, Sunday in Buffalo could be his last chance to do it. It’s highly unlikely he will be the Jets’ starting QB or #2 next year, and a chance to get on the field in regular season games at QB for another NFL team could be a long shot.
And none of this is meant as a shot at the kid, just the reality of the situation.
So he’s soaking in every minute of this experience.
One of the keys to happiness in life is gratitude. Cook seems to have plenty of it related to the rare shot he’s received over the last month . . .
As we mentioned yesterday, the Jets have signed a couple of safeties over the last couple of weeks, Keidron Smith and Christopher Smith, who had experience with other teams.
It might be time to get the more advanced of the two, the guy who is more comfortable with the system at this point, into the mix at safety.
It’s hard to function as defense with the play the Jets are getting in coverage at safety and in the slot.
Another slot option is Nik Needham, who had 29 starts in Miami, and surprisingly has had a hard time getting on the field with the Jets . . .
Jets defensive end Michael Clemons missed practices on Wednesday and Thursday. Clearly an Aaron Glenn favorite, it’s possible he might miss his first game as a Jet. He’s been very durable throughout his time with the Jets . . .
Pictured above is Woody Johnson and Ira Axselrad to his right. Not sure who the man on the left is.
Axselrad, a brilliant financial analyst, might be the most powerful man on the Jets scene. He is essentially Johnson’s right-hand man.
January 1, 2026
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