What to Know: Packers Workout OT Jarrid Williams on Friday
By Paul Bretl
As the old Brian Gutekunst-ism goes, rostering building is a 365-day-a-year job, and that hasn’t been more evident over this past week for the Green Bay Packers.
Going back to last Friday, the Packers have signed five players while making four corresponding cuts in the process.
At this point, no signing has been made official, but on Friday, the team did work out Jarrid Williams–a rookie offensive tackle from Miami.
Williams, who began his college career at Houston before transferring, went undrafted during this past draft and signed with the Philadelphia Eagles as an undrafted rookie, although he wasn’t able to stick.
Williams is an older prospect, having spent six seasons at the college level, which includes playing over 2,700 career snaps–most of which came at right tackle. Over his final two seasons, Williams gave up just five combined sacks and only 19 pressures in 771 pass-blocking reps. This most recent season, he would rank 26th out of all college tackles in PFF’s run-blocking grade.
The 6’5″ – 323-pound Williams, who has good size and nearly 36″ arms, posted a Relative Athletic Score (RAS) of 7.63 out of 10, which included a 5.18-second 40-yard dash and a 31″ vertical. By the RAS metrics, Williams didn’t blow anyone away in any particular category, but he did post solid numbers across the board.
For more on Williams’ game, Tony Pauline of Pro Football Network had this to say prior to the 2022 NFL Draft:
"“Positives: Once-promising offensive tackle who bends his knees, blocks with leverage, and gets the most from his ability. Makes good use of angles in pass protection, effectively uses his hands, and consistently gets leverage on opponents. Explosive at the point and fires off the snap into blocks.“Negatives: Lacks smooth and quick footwork off the edge. Overextends into blocks. Shows himself to be a liability in pass protection on occasion. Not a great athlete. Played uninspired football the past few seasons.“Analysis: I projected Williams as a legitimate next-level tackle early in his college career at Houston, but his game never progressed. He possesses excellent size and long arms and comes with growth potential. He needs to polish his game but has enough tools to be kept on a practice squad as a developmental right tackle or even interior offensive lineman.”"
Without David Bakhtiari and Elgton Jenkins for the time being, the Green Bay Packers find themselves quite thin at the offensive tackle position–not to mention they are lacking experience as well. However, Williams can’t help in that regard.
Through the first few training camp practices, we’ve seen both Yosh Nijman and Zach Tom taking snaps with the starters at left tackle, while Royce Newman, Cole Van Lanen, and also Nijman once again, have been taking the right tackle snaps with the ones.
Williams, of course, isn’t going to see snaps with the starters, but if signed, he would provide the Packers with an additional player that they can rotate in during practices and the preseason games. In addition to the players mentioned above, rookie Sean Rhyan — who has primarily been at guard so far — is the only other offensive tackle option that the Packers have on the roster.
We should know fairly soon whether or not the Packers are going to sign Williams. If they do, they will have to make a corresponding cut as well.