Quincy Williams’ first game in a Browns uniform could hardly have gone much worse.
Cleveland got buried 34-10 by the Jacksonville Jaguars, and Williams was right in the middle of the mess. Pro Football Focus tagged him with a brutal 29.9 grade, which put him 66th out of 68 graded linebackers around the league. His coverage number was even uglier at 29.3, and the film matched the evaluation.
There was one snap that said plenty about the afternoon. Williams stood still for two seconds before Trevor Lawrence found Parker Washington behind him for a big gain. Even if Williams was spying the quarterback, he needed to trigger faster than that.
For Jets fans, the debut had to sting in a familiar way. New York moved on from a number of holdovers from the Robert Saleh era before the 2026 season, part of the reason the team signed Demario Davis and let Williams leave for Cleveland in free agency. After one week, that decision looks pretty clean from the Jets’ side.
The Browns may have had their own ideas about what they were getting. Cleveland hired former Jets linebackers coach Mike Ruttenberg as defensive coordinator, and Williams landed in a linebacker group that included ascending young player Carson Schwesinger and All-Pro Myles Garrett. But Garrett was traded, Schwesinger struggled in Week 1 too, and Williams looked like he was on another planet.
That was a sharp contrast from the version of Williams New York knew. In his Jets days, his problem was often that he attacked with so much force that quarterbacks could use that aggression against him and manipulate him with their eyes.
Against Jacksonville, though, he didn’t look like the same explosive player at all. He was staring at Lawrence far too long, and the Jaguars made him pay.
Davis, meanwhile, has already looked like a worthwhile upgrade for New York. He showed strong instincts and moved well for a player his age, and his coverage on Tony Pollard on a wheel route was the kind of play a Williams-led linebacker room last season likely would have surrendered for six.
Davis has also helped Sherwood settle into a better spot. With Davis handling the green dot, Sherwood can return to the complementary role he had when CJ Mosley was around, using his speed and his heat-seeking style more effectively while Davis cleans up the mess around him.
Williams, though, is the one left with the bad start. Picking Cleveland already looked like a strange fit for a player leaving one struggling team for another one few expect to make a playoff run. After the Jaguars were one step away from just finding No. 5 on every play and throwing at him, Williams may already be facing a much bigger question than just one rough Sunday.
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Pro Football Focus rewarded the performance with a 75.1 overall grade and a 77.2 run defense grade, both among the best single-game marks of his NFL career. The timing matters for the Jets, too, because the extra snaps came with Joseph Ossai still working his way back from injury, leaving McGregor with a chance to show he can be part of the solution if the rotation remains thin. [Read more 🡒]
Jets May Have Found The Answer To A Major O Line Doubt
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There was still some give-and-take in the performance, with Parham allowing four pressures, but the overall impact was hard to miss. For a player whose arrival came with some concern about whether he could stabilize the unit, the opener suggested the Jets may have found a real piece in front of their offense, even if the bigger test is still ahead. [Read more 🡒]