During the 2024 season, it was apparent that the Pittsburgh Steelers needed to add more receiving help around George Pickens. In an effort to do so, they traded a fifth-round pick to the New York Jets in exchange for Mike Williams. Aside from a game-winning touchdown reception just after being acquired, Williams didn’t make much of an impact. According to Steelers insider Brian Batko, he would have liked to be more of a focal point in the offense.
“I talked to Mike Williams several times after he came over from the Jets, and I never got an inkling that he wasn’t healthy,” Batko wrote in his weekly chat with the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette. “He was practically begging for more opportunities. They may have misevaluated how well he could still play when they gave up that pick for him, but I can’t fault them too much. At the time, it made a lot of sense to bring in another piece for the offense, particularly a field-stretcher for Russell Wilson’s deep ball.”
It’s unclear if Batko means Williams expressed that desire to the team, or just to Batko himself. It’s understandable, though. Aside from that aforementioned touchdown reception against the Commanders, Williams was mostly quiet through his nine games as a Steeler. In total, he only saw 13 targets. However, he did make the most of them. Williams caught nine of those passes for 132 yards, an average of 14.7 yards per reception.
The 2024 season was a bad one for Mike Williams in general, though. He went as far as to say so himself. Unfortunately, he came to Pittsburgh just before the team collapsed in dramatic fashion. Williams’ first game in the black and gold was that win against Washington. But just a few weeks later, the Steelers went on to lose their last five games.
There were various reasons for that, just like there were plenty of reasons why Williams was so quiet. One was poor quarterback play. Russell Wilson’s faults became much clearer as the year went on. Aside from deep balls and checking the ball down, he couldn’t get much of anything going. There were also disagreements between Wilson and Arthur Smith, which could only have hurt the cohesion of the entire offense. Pittsburgh didn’t establish the run as much as it would have liked, making things harder on the passing game.
At the end of the day, neither Williams nor the Steelers had the ending they would have liked. If Williams had gotten more opportunities, as he wanted, maybe things could have been different. He wasn’t great, but he caught nine of the 13 passes that went his way and didn’t drop any of them. If Pittsburgh could have vaulted him into that WR2 role, maybe the end of the season would have been a different story.
Mike Williams ended up signing with the Los Angeles Chargers this offseason. A few days ago, he decided to retire.