Jets tryout Giovanni Williams looks to join brothers Quinnen and Quincy to make some NFL history

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. (AP) — Giovanni Williams watched his older brothers chase their NFL dreams and become playmaking teammates with the New York Jets.

Now, the young linebacker is getting a chance to join them — and perhaps make some history.

Williams, the younger brother of defensive tackle Quinnen and linebacker Quincy, is in rookie minicamp with the Jets as a tryout after going undrafted out of Miles College, a Division II historically Black college in Fairfield, Alabama.

“It feels good,” Giovanni Williams said Saturday after practice. “It feels, I’d say, honestly, bittersweet just because living behind them, making my own name, I had to still live behind them. But it’s sweet because me and my brother (Quincy) play the same position. So it’s like, I can call on him for help and we’ve got the same competition level. So it’s going to be like competition, just like always.

“Just like we’re back home, just a big competition.”

If the younger Williams can make the team, it’s believed the Jets would be the first squad in NFL history to have three brothers on the same active roster.

“Honestly, it will mean a lot to me just to know that I came to the minicamp and I was coachable, I had urgency,” Williams said. “And just to be on the team with my brothers, it’ll feel good. It’ll be historical.”

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He still has plenty of work to do to pave that path to potential football history. But getting on the field with the rest of the Jets’ rookies was a good start.

“I just think it’s outstanding that he has a Jets jersey on and both of his brothers are actually here with us, so it’s a beautiful story,” coach Aaron Glenn said. “He’s working his butt off.”

Quinnen was a first-round draft pick of the Jets — No. 3 overall — out of Alabama in 2019. He has since been selected once as an All-Pro and three times for the Pro Bowl.

Quincy, the oldest of the three brothers, was a third-rounder the same year as Quinnen, taken by Jacksonville out of Murray State. He has also made an All-Pro team and become one of the league’s top middle linebackers.

Giovanni, meanwhile, spent three years at Texas A&M Kingsville and played the 2021 and 2022 seasons after sitting out as a freshman during the 2020 COVID-19 year. He transferred to Miles and played in two games in 2023 and had 29 total tackles and a sack in 11 games last season — after breaking his right hand in the season opener — while helping the school win a conference championship.

“I’m in the middle — I’ve got Quincy’s speed, but I’ve got Quinnen’s build,” said Giovanni, who said he weighs 222 pounds and was listed as 6-foot-1 in college. “So it’s like I’m the middle of both of them. So everybody compares me as the hybrid of both.”

It wasn’t always that way, though. In fact, Giovanni said, he weighed more — a lot more — than the 303-pound Quinnen when he was younger.

“Yeah, I was like 350 pounds in high school,” Giovanni said smiling and shaking his head. “I know, I know. I was huge. I’ve got pictures you need to see now.”

He has videos and photos posted on his Instagram page, showing how he dramatically transformed his body.

“Yeah, actually, there’s a funny story about that,” Giovanni said. “So I went from 350 (pounds) to like 185 in like three or four months and then I had to build it all the way up to like 220 just to get solid because when I was like 350, that was like, all right, you know, you’ve got to look the part. So I didn’t look like I was a middle linebacker.

“So I kind of was, like, I got in my head a little bit. I won’t say depressed, but I just got in my head a little bit and I was like, ‘You’ve got to work now, you’ve got to look the part.’ So I just did everything I could do and just got all my weight down and then just built it back up solid.”

And now he’s on an NFL field after getting a call from his agent saying that the Jets were going to give him an opportunity to join his brothers.

“Honestly, seeing my chances, all I can do is just come out here and do me and just handle my business,” he said. “Put my best foot forward and see whatever happens, happens.”

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