DENVER — There was a report this offseason that spread through the NFL fantasy industry.
The report said it didn’t look like Javonte Williams was going to make it back from ACL surgery for the season opener and the Broncos might be interested in the likes of veterans Kareem Hunt or Dalvin Cook.
The report may have been true at the time, but it didn’t carry well. Williams was ready by the start of training camp and he’s been the Broncos’ top back each of the first three games.
“You’re always going to hear stuff like that because no one knew how I was progressing,’’ Williams said this week in an interview with 9NEWS for the Broncos Huddle. “They were just comparing me to what they had seen other people do. I’m different from everybody else. I mean, I’m not trying to be cocky or anything but I came back earlier and I’m glad to be here.”
He could use a little more action now that the regular season has begun, but he’s averaging a solid 46 rushing yards per game on 3.8 yards per carry, plus has 8 catches for another 42 yards.
In some ways, Javonte is Javonte again, and in other ways he’s not quite all the way back to where he was during his superb rookie season in 2021, when he rushed for 903 yards while splitting carries with Melvin Gordon III. But even Adrian Peterson, who set the standard for ACL recovery by rushing for 2,097 yards to earn the NFL MVP award in 2012, didn’t have his first 100-yard rushing game until game 4 that year and his second triple-digit game wasn’t until week 7.
“I feel like recovery-wise, I’m good to go,’’ Williams said. “There’s a couple runs I wish I had back as always. I always feel like I could have done something better. But yeah I’ve got to trust my reads and big gains will come.”
Williams is a powerful back, a tackle-breaker and a tackle carrier. There have been a couple times this season, though, where instead of ramming it up inside where there was no hole but instead a 300-pound behemoth waiting for him, Williams tried to run sideways. He did that three times last week against Miami and while he did turn the corner on one, he took losses of 3 yards and 2 yards on the others.
Most NFL running back coaches don’t want that. They want their backs taking no to minimal gain rather than bounce outside and risk getting the offense behind the sticks.
“Being a football player and a playmaker you’re always trying to make plays,’’ Williams said. “And that’s where I feel like I got caught up trying to do a little too much, running sideways. But yeah, they told me just get 1 yard. Instead of losing 2 we’d rather you just get 1.
“Hindsight is always 20-20. When you look back at it, you’re always going to say, ‘Ah, I should have done this or I should have done that.’ But as long as you stick to your reads and go 100 miles per hour I feel like you’re always going to be right.”
To show how young NFL players are today, Williams, who is still only 23, grew up idolizing not Brett Favre the Green Bay Packer, but Favre the Minnesota Viking.
“My dad was a big Vikings fan so Brett Favre, Adrian Peterson, Percy Harvin, players like that,” Williams said of his childhood heroes.
Like his teammates, Williams hasn’t had the most pleasant week following the Broncos’ embarrassing 70-20 loss last Sunday at Miami. But also like his teammates, Williams does a decent job of looking forward, not behind.
“I haven’t really received too many text messages from my family but just talking to the team everybody understands it’s a long season,’’ he said. “We’re only 3 games in. I think we’ve still got like, 14. So it’s really no panic, we just know we’ve got to get on our A game.
“What everybody has got to understand, whether you lost by 50 or 1 point, a loss is a loss. So we’re treating that loss just like any other one and we’re on to Chicago now.”
Williams and the Broncos meet the Bears at 11 a.m. MDT Sunday at Chicago’s Soldier Field.
“They’ve got two new linebackers, (Tremaine) Edmunds and( T.J.) Edwards that they signed in the offseason so those are two good additions,’’ Williams said. “The secondary is good, the D-line is good so we’re going to have to lean on the run game again and play-action and do everything else that we do off of that.”
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