It's the most wonderful time of year, when every NFL player is in the "best shape of their lives" and the grass is so much greener for guys who left their previous situations and got a fresh start elsewhere. The Denver Broncos moved on from Javonte Williams in the 2025 offseason after a disappointing end to his time with the franchise in 2024, and he quickly found a home with the Dallas Cowboys.
The Cowboys signed Williams to a very team-friendly deal, a one-year pact worth just $3 million in total money. Williams was signed to compete for a starting job in Dallas with fellow veteran Miles Sanders, and after OTAs and minicamp, he sounds well on his way to securing the RB1 role for "America's Team."
As members of Broncos Country keep tabs on Williams, obviously wishing him the best, you can't help but notice many of the same reports coming out of Dallas as we've seen the past couple of years coming out of Denver. Cowboys reporters are putting out their fluff pieces on Williams, who is saying he feels "like himself again" in Dallas.
Cowboys beat saying what Broncos fans have already heard regarding Javonte WIlliams
Talked to Cowboys RB Javonte Williams, he said he is just now feeling completely ike himself two years after his acl injury. And he said it still could get more flexibility. He said from a mental and physical, there is a lot of about the recovery and rehab that people don't…
— Clarence Hill Jr (@clarencehilljr) May 20, 2025
Again, everyone in Denver should want to see Williams have success. The former second-round pick out of North Carolina once looked like one of the most promising young running backs in the NFL with his ability to create yardage after contact, but the next time we see that guy out on an NFL field, it will be the first time since early 2022/late 2021.
Williams was wildly inefficient in his last two years in Denver, in which he stated many similar things about feeling "ready" after his gruesome injury in 2022. The hope from Williams and everyone else was that he would be as confident as possible coming back from the knee injury, but everyone seemed to understand that he came back very quickly -- miraculously so -- and there was always a chance he wasn't going to look like the same guy.
And to say that was the case would be an understatement. Williams's lack of vision showed up on a number of occasions, to the point that Sean Payton recently stated the Broncos' running backs left a lot of meat on the bone last season. Williams was the lead ball carrier and pretty directly to blame for the majority of the team's struggles to run the ball the past couple of years. The Broncos ranked 1st in the NFL in ESPN's run block win rate metric, and they were top-10 in 2023.
But with a training staff that kept guys on the field and helped get Williams right quicker than anyone could have hoped, the results just weren't there. It was a brutal couple of years for the Broncos' running game and Williams individually. Now, you've got Cowboys fans and reporters acting like Denver didn't give him a fair shot, or like he hasn't said the same things to the media in the past about feeling great following his knee injury.
If Williams can recapture the magic in Dallas this year, it will be an amazing story, but it won't be because he wasn't physically good enough or that he wasn't being given the right opportunity in Denver.