Quinnen Williams says Jets’ defense vows to never repeat embarrassing performance against Bills

By Canadian Press on September 18, 2025.

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. (AP) — Quinnen Williams and the rest of the New York Jets’ defense were embarrassed as they reviewed their performance last Sunday against the Buffalo Bills.

Too many mental mistakes. Too many missed tackles. Too many yards and points allowed.

“We all made a pact as a defense, player to player,” Williams said Thursday, “that will never happen again.”

Josh Allen and the Bills sliced through the Jets by rolling up 224 yards rushing — the most New York allowed in four years — while cruising to a 30-10 victory.

“Knowing that we put ourself in horrible positions in that game, it hurt even worse to watch it,” Williams said.

It was a stunningly bad performance by a defense under coach Aaron Glenn and coordinator Steve Wilks that’s considered a strength of the team. Those expectations were further heightened in the opener when the Jets held Pittsburgh to 53 yards rushing in their 34-32 loss.

“Moving forward, man, just getting better every single day doing the things that we know we can do as a defense,” Williams said, “and we know what we can do as a unit.”

The defensive tackle said the players shared their thoughts during a regular defensive meeting earlier this week after watching the replays of the loss and evaluating themselves.

“We all took constructive criticism from each other, owned up to what we need to do right and got better at it,” Williams said. “Not just talking about it, but really taking the time yesterday and today to get better at what we needed to get better at, if it was staying after practice late or if it was coming out to practice early, because we did what we needed to do when it comes to stopping the run in Week 1.

“And (we have to) be able to be consistent at doing that and doing the things we know we can do so it won’t ever happen again.”

Williams attributed the struggles against the Bills to a lack of execution and not beating themselves with mental errors and penalties.

“We’ve got the guys in the defensive room to be able to be one of the best defenses in this league,” he said.

Wilks echoed Williams assessment earlier in the day while discussing the struggles of the defense against Buffalo.

“We’ve got to get back to where we were the first week,” Wilks said. “Gap control, controlling the line of scrimmage, penetrating and our linebackers playing downhill.”

At 0-2, the Jets are hitting the road for the first time this season and heading to Tampa Bay where they’ll take on Baker Mayfield and the 2-0 Buccaneers. Mayfield has gotten off to a strong start with the offense, which ranks ninth in the NFL in rushing.

“Everything we do starts up front, and we’ve got to do a great job every week in controlling the line of scrimmage,” Wilks reiterated. “I thought we did that against Pittsburgh, you know? The word that I talked about to the players is ‘consistency,’ and that’s what needs to show up each and every week.”

The Buccaneers have some issues up front on offense with guard Cody Mauch and right tackle Luke Goedeke placed on injured reserve Thursday. And that’s with All-Pro left tackle Tristan Wirfs already having not yet played because of a knee injury.

“I haven’t really focused on that,” Williams said. “We’ve got stuff we’ve got to fix internally when it comes down to being the defense that we want to be, when it comes down to making the mental errors that we’ve been making.

“And trying to do the things that we know we can do personally as a defense so whoever lines up in front of us, we’ll be able to dominate them.”

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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL

Dennis Waszak Jr., The Associated Press

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