Veteran wide receiver Mike Williams accomplished something this season that hasn’t even been possible for most of NFL history: He played in 18 games.
Williams played the first nine games of the season for the Jets, then got traded to the Steelers, where he played the remaining nine games of the season. At the time the Jets traded Williams, they hadn’t had their bye week, and the Steelers had already had their bye week, so Williams played in a game in all 18 weeks of the season.
Last year Leonard Williams became the first player in the modern era to play 18 games in a season when he was traded from the Giants to the Seahawks and played in every game for both teams, without getting a bye.
In the modern era, playing 18 games in a season only became possible in 2021, when the NFL added a 17th regular season game and an 18th week to the season. But Williams and Williams are not the only players in NFL history to play 18 games in a season. In the early days of the NFL, schedules were not standardized and some teams played more games than others. From 1925 to 1930 the Frankford Yellow Jackets played more games than other NFL teams, and according to pro-football-reference.com, four Yellow Jackets players played in 19 games in a season, and another 11 Yellow Jackets played in 18 games in a season.
Before Leonard Williams did it last year, the last time an NFL player played in 18 games in a regular season was in 1930. Now Mike Williams has done something that might become the norm in the NFL, and played an 18-game season.
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