After Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers violated the football code by calling out receiver Mike Williams for running the wrong route in a loss to the Bills, Williams took the high road.
After Williams made a stellar debut with more yards and touchdowns on one target for the Steelers than Davante Adams generated on 13 targets from Rodgers against the Cardinals, Williams dipped a toe below the high road.
In a post on Instagram celebrating his first game with the team that traded for him last Tuesday, Williams added three hashtags: (1) #WholeLotta; (2) #WeBack; and (3) #RedLine.
The last one was a direct reference to Rodgers’s criticism; he told reporters after the Monday night loss to Buffalo that Williams was supposed to be on the “red line” on the practice field, five yards from the sideline.
That contributed to the trust issue between Rodgers and Williams. Which is no surprise, because Rodgers has a history of not trusting receivers unless they fully and completely earn it and keep it.
So when I spoke with Williams by phone after Pittsburgh’s 28-27 win over the Commanders, I asked Williams what he did to quickly gain the trust of quarterback Russell Wilson — who trusted Williams enough to throw the ball his way with the game on the line.
“I kind of tried to gain that trust throughout practice this week, just any ball that came my way,” Williams said. “Just tried to make a play just for him to know that if he throws me the ball he can rely on me to come down with it so that was the main thing for me was just to kind of build that trust.”
On the play that delivered the game-winning 32-yard score, Williams didn’t know it was coming to him until the last instant.
“I knew I had an opportunity just for being on the field, just knowing that it might be a one-on-one opportunity backside, just be ready for anything,” Williams said. “I actually saw it at the last second to be honest with you. I just checked the sky, saw it was there, and kind of just, yeah, made a play on it.”
Indeed he did. And it shows the value of prioritizing touchdowns and wins over completion percentage and touchdown-to-interception ratio.
But if Williams should happen at some point to run the wrong route for Wilson, here’s one thing that is a million percent true: Wilson will never, ever call Williams out publicly for doing it.