Mike Williams may have fallen out of Aaron Rodgers’ circle of trust when he allegedly ran the wrong route and then slipped on the QB’s fourth-quarter interception in Monday’s loss to the Bills.
Rodgers sounded frustrated in the postgame press conference, saying that Williams ran an incorrect route on what proved to the offense’s final play in the 23-20 setback.
“There’s two verticals, Allen (Lazard)’s down the seam, and Mike’s down the red line,” Rodgers said after the game. “So, I’m throwing a no look to the red line. When I peak my eyes back there Mike’s running an ‘in-breaker’ … it’s gotta be down the red line.”
Facing a 3rd-and-16 at the Jets’ 40-yard line while trailing, 23-30, with 2:01 remaining, Rodgers attempted to hit Williams down the right sideline for a huge gain.
However, Williams slipped and that allowed Taron Johnson to jump in front of him for the interception that all but ended the game.
Rodgers seemingly looked at Williams in disgust after the play.
Williams caught zero of his three targets on Monday and has only caught 10 of his 17 targets for 145 yards with zero touchdowns spanning five games.
The quarterback commented on his remarks about Williams on Tuesday after celebrating his reunion with new Jets receiver Davante Adams.
“If you watch my press conferences, you know I started with myself,” Rodgers said on the “Pat McAfee Show.”
“When I’ve made mistakes, ‘I’ve got to play better, make that throw,’ that’s the standard for everyone. There were a lot of mistakes throughout the night, but if you’re looking at just that play, that’s what the questions were. ‘What happened on that play?’ Well, it was two verticals on the right side. Mike needed to get to the red line, which would’ve been a big gain, so I wasn’t calling Mike out for anything other than his responsibility in the details of that play. I have a lot of love and respect for Mike; he’s done some nice things for us, but in that play, he wasn’t in the right spot. You can make more of that if you want to, but we should all be held to a standard. I hold myself to a standard of greatness, and it hasn’t been there at certain times.”
With Adams now a member of the Jets, it’ll be interesting to see where Williams fits in the offense.
His role will likely be substantially reduced, as Lazard has looked like the player he was in Green Bay again and Adams immediately slots in as the team’s No. 2 target behind Garrett Wilson.
He is making $10 million in 2024, making him the 34th highest-paid receiver in the NFL this year.
The ex-Charger, who is coming off a torn ACL, saw his snap count drop significantly Monday (51 percent in Week 6 vs. 71 percent in Week 5), while Xavier Gipson received a substantial bump in snaps on three-receiver sets.
