A bright and promising rookie season doesn’t always equate to a Year 2 leap. However, in the case of Evan Williams, that’s exactly what happened.
Now entering Year 3, can he take the leap to become a true star?
Evan Williams racked up 100 tackles, including four tackles for loss, and led the Green Bay Packers with three interceptions a year ago. It was the first time a Packers player hit those marks in a season since A.J. Hawk in 2010.
Starting alongside star safety Xavier McKinney, Williams looked stout over 15 starts, continuing to show there are plenty of layers to his game. He elevated his game to the point that even Chicago Bears coach Ben Johnson labeled the duo the best in the business.
I don’t know if there’s a better safety tandem right now (in the league). These two guys, you just have to account for them. I think the safety position in general is one that it’s rare you go into a game feeling like there’s an impact player, and yet this particular week, these two guys are.
McKinney was a star before he arrived in Green Bay. It’s one of the reasons the Packers targeted him in free agency in 2024. Williams was the unknown as a young, fourth-round pick in 2024. Now, he’s blossoming into a defensive pillar.
Green Bay is aware of the growth and development Williams showed from Year 1 to Year 2. Head coach Matt LaFleur gave Williams some of the highest praise a young player can receive when he referred to his football IQ.
Evan’s made a ton of progress. He’s one of the guys back there who has the capability of getting the ball out at any time. You saw it in our first game at home on the one they ruled incomplete, which I still don’t understand. He’s a ball hawk with a nose for the football. He’s really intelligent, can anticipate things, and it’s like having another coach on the field.
Green Bay has plenty of young players who looked like stars in the making early on in their careers. Names like Edgerrin Cooper, Matthew Golden, and Tucker Kraft come to mind. Williams has earned the right to be in those discussions. The next question is how high he can fly in 2026 under a new defensive coordinator in Jonathan Gannon.
Players react differently to a new coordinator and a new system. With Williams, there should be less concern about his adaptability, given some of LaFleur’s comments.
McKinney is also a huge factor. The Packers have a potential star duo at safety, and neither works as well without the other. Williams had the luxury of starting 15 games last year but not having to worry about being the alpha at the position. Being able to play next to an All-Pro like McKinney does wonders for a young player.
Learning technical details and being able to pick McKinney’s brain is just part of it. Chemistry matters, and McKinney believes the pairing of him and Williams will only get better.
I think it’s grown a lot, and I think you’re going to see it at its peak, like its peak performance, especially this year, because we’ve been able to play with each other for a couple years. So he knows how I work, I know how he works, and we have kind of those tendencies with each other that we know. OK, he wants to do this, I want to do this, and we kind of work off of that. So, it’s going to be fun man. We’ve had a relationship ever since he got here, and it’s done nothing but just grow.
Getting a firsthand glimpse of how a star player at the position prepares and conducts business will benefit Williams as he attempts to make that leap into becoming a star.
In two years after being a fourth-round selection, Evan Williams has gone from being an unheralded depth piece to a starter to a damn good starter. We still don’t know if he’ll become a bona fide star, but he’s put himself in a position to be a prime candidate.
