Quincy Williams Coming Off IR

By Matt Schauf | Updated on Wed, Oct 22 2025 4:21 PM UTC

The Jets on Wednesday designated LB Quincy Williams to return from IR. He missed the past four games with a shoulder injury. The designation doesn't necessarily mean he's ready to play this week. The team has 21 days to either fully activate Williams or put him on season-ending IR. We'll watch his practice participation this week and check for signals on the Jets' LB plan.

2025 Fantasy Football Impact

There are two factors complicating the outlook here:

Williams' name has been tossed around quite a bit in trade rumors, and he would make sense as a mover.
Rookie LB Kiko Mauigoa has garnered some praise while filling in for Williams.

Mauigoa specifically earned a strong 86.3 overall defensive grade from Pro Football Focus in Week 6 against Denver. From Jets blog The Jet Press:

"Mauigoa was one of the best players on a Jets defense that held Bo Nix and the Broncos to just 13 points. It was an incredibly encouraging performance from a player who has a real chance to carve out a long-term role in New York."

Williams, meanwhile, is in the final year of his Jets contract and will turn 30 ahead of next season. That makes him a pretty easy trade candidate if there's interest -- which there should be -- and that factor could mean the Jets keeping him off the field a bit longer (to avoid injury).

We'll see how the rest of this week plays out. For now, our Week 8 LB rankings have playing time split between Williams and Mauigoa.

Matt Schauf, Editor

Matt has earned two Fantasy Pros accuracy awards for IDP rankings and won thousands of dollars as a player across best ball, dynasty, and high-stakes fantasy formats. He has been creating fantasy football content for more than 20 years, with work featured by Sporting News, Rotoworld, Athlon, Sirius XM, and others. He's been with Draft Sharks since 2011.