Pats Pulpit
Since losing Antonio Gibson to a torn ACL in Week 5, the New England Patriots have shuffled through several kickoff returners. It seems they might have found a permanent one in rookie Kyle Williams.
A third-round draft pick earlier this year, Williams took his first snaps at the position last Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals. The results were promising, and included a 36-yard runback that was the Patriots’ longest since Gibson scored a 90-yard touchdown in Week 2 against the Miami Dolphins.
For special teams coordinator Jeremy Springer, the results themselves were not the only important takeaway from Williams’ performance.
“I love the way he played,” Springer said on Friday. “He’s a speed guy, right? And then on top of that, in this new dynamic kickoff, you can’t really have any fear back there. You got to go and run through the smoke. And I felt like he did that, especially on that last kickoff return where he almost broke it for a touchdown.”
In his first game action as the Patriots’ kick returner, Williams fielded three snaps and ran them back a combined 86 yards with a 28.7-yard average.
“He had a really good mentality throughout the game, was confident catching it — catching it, just getting forward, getting vertical, finding the vertical seam and hitting it. That’s what he did,” Springer said. “Hopefully, he’ll continue to do that with whoever we line up this week. We’re training all the guys throughout the year, right? Development guys, different guys. He was the next one to step up last week and he did so, and we’ll see what happens this week.”
Williams’ next test will come against a New York Giants special teams unit ranked sixth in the league in average yards per return given up (24). Whether the 69th overall selection in this year’s draft will be up for the challenge remains to be seen, but the Patriots seem willing to find out.
