FRISCO, Texas – Dallas Cowboys (3-5-1) ranked among the best in 2025 NFL Blockbuster Trade Deadline Moves By Trading For New York Jets All-Pro defensive tackle Quinnen Williams November 4.
Williams now can't wait to get back on the football field for his Cowboys debut on Monday Night Football at the Stadium. Las Vegas Raiders (2-7). Since Williams last appeared for the Jets in New York's 39-38 road win on Cincinnati Bengals October 26 and Monday November 17 in Las Vegas.
“I'm really excited… I haven't played a game in a long minute. I'm excited to not only play football, but to play for this organization, man, to play for this team, to play for the guys on our defensive line and to play for the guys in this organization,” Williams said Friday. … They took a chance and traded for me. … They feel like I can contribute and help this organization move in the right direction. That's all I plan to do.”
The 27-year-old man is healthy. He just had to sit back-to-back weeks between Week 9 in New York and Week 10 in Dallas, creating a unique situation for the six-foot-three, 303-pound defensive tackle. Williams spent the bye week with the Cowboys developing a customized plan with the Dallas coaching staff to make his body feel like he only missed one game instead of two.
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“This is the first time I've recovered and not played a single game, but it's about two weeks, and some games… two and a half weeks of something. We did a great job with this coaching staff and strength and conditioning last week because my plan was to prepare like I was going to play in the game,” Williams said. “Do pre-practice as if I was going to play in the game because I had a bye week. As far as fitness, everything in general, I just hit it like I was still in the season and still playing in the game. I didn’t play the game on Sunday, but I did a mock game between ourselves.”
What does the single player layout look like? Williams feigns diligence in his usual 30- or 40-game spread.
“Something like 30 or 40 reps, or sprints, or meds.[icine] ball things. Something like cardio where I can still have that wind and stuff like that,” Williams said. “So getting back into training this week was easy and it's a blessing to be healthy.”
Williams joins the Cowboys at a difficult time following the death of 24-year-old edge rusher Marshawn Niland as a result of apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound occurred on Nov. 6, just two days after the defensive tackle arrived in Dallas. However, the tragedy brought everyone in the organization is closer to each othergiving Williams the opportunity to grow as a man and alongside his new teammates and coaches. The situation forced him to pay more attention to his personal relationships with his teammates outside of football, instead of focusing solely on the ball all the time.
“Unity, despite these difficulties, through this tragedy, brought everyone together,” Williams said. “He was an incredible person. I've always had to take a step back in my career, especially after this tragedy. I always think that winning is everything to me, and sometimes I can get so deep into myself, deep into my game, deep into winning, that I forget to build relationships with my teammates and build relationships with the coaching staff. Going through that tragedy with the guys in the organization and with the guys in the locker room also kind of made me grow as a person and as a person. Win the Super Bowl, you'll win playoff games with the guys you love around you, and you can't love anyone around you if you don't know them. It definitely taught me a lesson.”
Williams fits into Dallas defense on the field
Fitting into the Cowboys' lineup on the football field was easy for Williams thanks to his connection with Dallas defensive line coach Aaron Whitecotton, who was his position coach with the Jets from 2021 to 2024 before Whitecotton joined new coach Brian Schottenheimer's staff in Dallas in 2025. After just one season under Whitecotton, Williams posted a career-high 12.0 in 2021. sacks in 2022, earning him first-team All-Pro honors and starting three straight Pro Bowl seasons.
“When it comes to football, it was definitely easy for me to catch up, man. I really trusted my football IQ and what I was capable of, especially in terms of memorizing the playbook and remembering what they wanted me to do,” Williams said. “It probably took me a day or two to put the whole scheme together and come here and just fit in, man… Whatever the coaching staff, whatever the scheme is, whatever the team needs me to do to win football games, I'm ready to do what I'm going to do because at the end of the day, I just want to win.”
This all-in approach will be critical for Williams because he will now share the middle of Dallas' defensive line with two other well-compensated defensive tackles in the three-time Pro Bowler. Kenny Clark And Osa Odighizuwathe latter of whom re-signed with Dallas this offseason to a four-year, $80 million deal. Whitecotton and Schottenheimer said there will undoubtedly be rotations where all three will still get their starting level of game reps, but there will also be increased use of five-down fronts. In this case, the defense uses five defensive linemen at the line of scrimmage instead of the usual four. This adjustment yielded results for Dallas' collective passing game, as they matched the team's single-game sack record with five against Arizona Cardinals defender Jacoby Brissett in Week 9, the same thing the Cowboys also did in Week 5 against former Jets quarterback Williams. Justin Fields.
“Yes, that's a fair question. This is a good question. I think you saw us run some five-down stuff in the last game. There are creative ways we can use it with these guys. We don't have to just play five downs to get these guys into the game without giving anything away,” Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer said Thursday. “We can move pieces around and put certain guys in different spots. I think that's part of what you'll see us make some plays, maybe even more moving forward, but when you have that much talent inside, it's a problem for the defense. You talk about stopping the run, you have penetration, you have the ability to move these guys, pack them into the pass rush. This is the closest thing to a quarterback. And then, you know, the four of us will play. And when we do, the good news is that with guys like these, they'll be fresh. They'll be there, catching their breath, and then when they come, they'll be hunting.”
The arrangement is perfectly acceptable to Williams, in part because he will now be standing next to Clark, whom Williams has long admired from afar. Williams said he watched all the footage from Clark's first nine seasons with Green Bay Packers from 2016 to 2024 to learn from their game. Now he's ready to be Clark's teammate Monday night in Las Vegas against the Raiders.
“It’s incredible, man, to be able to not only play but learn from guys like Kenny Clarke and Wasp. I've been a fan of Kenny Clark for a long time, man, and what he can do with two and three technologies. I think I watched every clip of him in Green Bay,” Williams said. “Try to learn, try to take something from [him]. Osa has achieved incredible success in his career and has also achieved great success. So being able to learn from each other, like I said, has brought us together… on and off the field. It will be incredible to play them on Monday night.”
