As he prepares for Super Bowl 60, former WSU WR Kyle Williams is still the same guy: ‘Kyle is a dog’
SAN FRANCISCO – The place where Kyle Williams’ dreams first began to blossom is no bigger than a city block. It’s called Rowley Park, a relatively small outfit in the north end of Gardena, one of the Los Angeles suburbs where Williams grew up.
This was about a decade ago, long before Williams starred at wide receiver for Washington State, long before he was drafted by the New England Patriots in the third round of last spring’s NFL draft. This was when Williams was only a high schooler, trying to make a splash at St. Monica Catholic High. So he and his dad, Stephen, made a few local parks their training grounds.
Their favorite was Rowley, where Stephen would put Kyle through all kinds of drills to hone his skills at wideout: releases, routes, everything. Kyle’s favorite NFL receiver to study at the time was Stefon Diggs, who played for the Minnesota Vikings at the time. The two would pull up YouTube videos of Diggs’ highlights. Williams would do his best to replicate Diggs’ mechanics.
“Now, here it is,” Stephen said. “You can actually talk to the man himself.”
That’s because Diggs is now a New England Patriot, same as Williams, who isn’t just learning from one of the league’s best receivers. Together, they’re getting ready to play the Seattle Seahawks in Sunday’s Super Bowl 60, putting Williams under the brightest lights the sport can offer.
When Williams takes the field at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, he’ll be representing Washington State, where he racked up so many superlatives that it almost seems impossible he was only a Cougar for two years. Here are a few to set the tone: All told, he totaled 131 receptions for 2,040 yards and 20 touchdowns. He ranks No. 3 in program history with 1,198 single-season receiving yards. In his 25 games at WSU, the 6-foot Williams recorded seven 100-yard games, tied for 10th-most in program history. And that includes Williams’ 172-yard game against Syracuse in the 2024 Holiday Bowl, the most in the bowl game’s 45-game history.
As an NFL rookie, Williams has logged 10 catches for 209 yards and three touchdowns, playing in all 17 games. He hasn’t exactly played at the front of the Patriots’ wide receiver rotation, letting veterans like Diggs and Mack Hollins take the reins, but when coach Mike Vrabel has needed a big play, he has found a reliable target in Williams.
He recorded his first pro touchdown in early November, parlaying a short catch into a 72-yard burst into the end zone. A few weeks later, in a Monday Night contest against the New York Giants, he jetted up the sideline and reeled in a 33-yard score from quarterback Drake Maye. Then in late December, he gave the same treatment to veteran Baltimore Ravens cornerback Marlon Humphrey, who couldn’t stop Williams from securing a 37-yard touchdown strike – a critical development in a four-point win for New England.
With those kinds of plays, Williams has shown off his blistering speed, his big-play acumen that put him on NFL coaches’ radars in the first place. But those are also the kinds of plays that he was making in spades only a year prior. In his final season at WSU, he made 70 catches in 780 snaps of offense. As a rookie in the NFL, he’s registered 10 catches in 393 snaps.
Of course, that often comes with the territory of making the jump from college ball to the pros, where Williams is no longer the best player every time he steps on the field. But he might not have earned the types of opportunities he has if he wasn’t open to such a reality. It begs the question: For Williams, what has it taken to be OK with accepting a smaller role in such short order?
“It takes you seeing the bigger picture, you know?” Williams said. “Understanding that everybody that’s in the league was once a guy on their team, and sometimes you have to step back, take what’s being given to you. And that’s what I’ve been doing, and I haven’t had no complaints with it. I’m blessed, because some people don’t even get to get half of what I’m getting. So you gotta take it on the chin and be open to it. Find a role and find a way to stay on the team, and that’s what I’m doing.”
Sure enough, check out Williams’ numbers on special teams. He’s returned 11 kicks for 290 yards. On his longest return, in a road test against Buffalo, he reversed fields and cut to the outside, where he raced upfield for a 47-yard return – which was wiped out by a holding penalty. Officially, his best return came against Cincinnati, which he burned for a 36-yard return, darting through waves of defenders until he was brought down just across his own 40-yard line.
When Williams got to his feet, he unleashed a scream. Yelled something to himself. This much was clear: He had something to prove as a kick returner, too.
Turns out, that kind of versatility was a big reason why the Patriots liked him with overall selection No. 69 in last year’s draft. In the spring, Williams first met New England coaches at a top-30 visit, an in-person meeting where teams invite up to 30 prospects to their facility for interviews, medical evaluations, workouts and the like.
There, he met Patriots receivers coach Todd Downing, who took an immediate liking toward Williams. “Super charismatic. Really enjoyed being around him,” Downing said. “He was engaged the whole time. He was smarter than I thought he was, based off of our Zoom. Retained things really well, remembered some stuff we talked about, just a really impressive young man, and made me really excited about the prospect of working with him.”
Among other things, Downing was impressed with Williams’ ability to process what he’s seeing on the field. In their Zoom meeting previously, Downing had drawn up a hypothetical play where an X receiver had one responsibility and an F receiver had another.
“And he remembered both the X and the F,” Downing said. “Just an exceptional learner. He sees the big picture and understands where he fits in the puzzle.”
Before he could polish that part of his game, though, Williams had to make NFL coaches notice him to begin with.
***
Two years and some change later, Ben Arbuckle remembers the sequence like it happened yesterday. It was November 2023, toward the end of Williams’ debut season at WSU, and the Cougs were hosting Colorado. It was a night game in Pullman, where temperatures hovered in the low 30s.
About midway through the third quarter, Williams was matched up against Buffalo cornerback/receiver Travis Hunter, who went on to win the Heisman Trophy the following season. After one play where neither was involved, Hunter and Williams got tangled up. The scuffle moved to the Colorado sideline, where Hunter shoved Williams down. Williams crashed into a Gatorade tub. Hunter nodded and let Williams know about it.
That happened at 8:40 p.m. At 10:11, Williams found himself matched up against Hunter again. This time, Williams blew right by him and bolted for the end zone, where Cam Ward placed a perfect pass. Touchdown Cougars, a 34-yard strike.
“Right then and there, I said, Kyle is a dog,” said Arbuckle, the Cougars’ offensive coordinator for the 2023 and 2024 seasons, the same years Williams played at WSU. “Like, this dude is different. He just had something totally embarrassing happen to him, and he strapped his helmet up and came right back at him. At that point, I was like, heck yeah, I’m glad I get another year to coach this guy. Kyle was a dog, and you could just tell that he was so talented, so that mindset has taken him a long way.”
To those who know him best, Williams is making the same kinds of plays for the Patriots that he engineered for the Cougs. Take a look at his touchdown catch against the Ravens, a 37-yard connection. Maye drops back and lobs one to the corner of the end zone, forcing Williams to track the ball over his shoulder, keep his head to the sky until the ball falls into his chest, sliding out of bounds a couple yards into the end zone.
Look similar? Maybe it reminds you of the catch Williams made in the 2023 Apple Cup in Seattle, where he – somehow – hauled in a ball right as he fell out of bounds. In fact, the catch looked so improbable that even the official with the best view needed an extra couple moments to conclude that, yes, Williams had gotten his feet in bounds with the ball secured.
“It’s crazy,” Williams said, “because my mama sent me that same catch, and she said it looked the exact same. I mean, it’s just a catch that I work on a lot. I like being able to stretch the field and those types of catches, you gotta work those and make them second nature, and that’s just what I do.”
Now the OC at Oklahoma, Arbuckle also saw Williams’ first professional touchdown, the 72-yarder against Tampa Bay. On that play, Maye lofted in a perfect pass about 12 yards downfield to Williams, who caught it ahead of his defender. At first blush, it looked like a modest completion. But that’s the thing about Williams, the thing that has earned him an opportunity to play in the Super Bowl: Relying on him to settle for a modest play is about as smart as relying on the DMV to make things quick and convenient.
So Williams turned upfield and turned on the burners, gliding along the sideline, all the way into the end zone, where he crossed the plane with ease. He spun the ball when he reached the back.
“And I said, yep, that’s the Kyle I know,” Arbuckle said. “I used to throw him screens, I used to throw him hitches, option routes, and he would take it to the house. And so I’m like, yep, that’s the Kyle I know. That’s the Kyle I got to coach. That’s the Kyle that got me to where I’m at.”
Some 14 months have passed since Williams played his final game for the Cougars, but it’s clear he keeps his alma mater in mind. At Monday’s Super Bowl 60 opening night, he pulled down his Patriots jacket to reveal a white undershirt, with the crimson WSU logo in the corner.
“It’s a school that took me in with open arms,” Williams said, “that’s big on family, that camaraderie between the fans and the school. I think it just speaks well on what type of products that the Palouse produces.”
***
Stephen Williams knew his son’s life was changing – really changing – earlier in the season when Kyle told him about what had happened one night. He was out to dinner with his mom, Erin, who had made the trip up to Boston with one of Kyle’s siblings. Things were going normally until a Patriots fan recognized Kyle and asked him to sign an autograph.
Before he knew it, Williams was being asked to sign a couple different items, including by one fan who was so thrilled that he offered to pay the family’s check.
“So he was like, ‘ah, man, I just wanna have dinner with my mom and my brother,’ you know?” Stephen said. “But he understands that the fans are there and everything. That right there, he’s kinda getting used to it.”
Similar things surely happened to Williams all the time at WSU, but the ones recognizing him in public were usually fellow students, people who saw him as more of a classmate and athlete than a celebrity to get an autograph and picture with. That part of Williams’ new chapter of life, Stephen explained, is requiring a bit more adjustment.
Williams has plenty of new stuff on his plate. He’s living in a new part of the country, playing with new teammates, playing on a new stage. Plus, he explained, he has more money in his pocket. After getting drafted, he signed a four-year, $6.7 million rookie contract, which included a $1.51 million singing bonus. “You gotta be able to move smart and not just blow it on one thing,” Williams said. “So yeah, I’m learning. I got good people in my circle that’s helping me out. So I think we’re in a good direction.”
So who has Williams leaned on for advice? “My vets,” he said with a grin. That includes Diggs and Mack Hollins, both with nearly a decade of NFL experience under their belts, plus right tackle Morgan Moses, who has been a pro since 2014.
“Those types of dudes that have been in the league a little longer,” Williams said, “and they know how to manage their money now.”
That trio of veterans may be able to point Williams in the right direction when it comes to lifestyle decisions, but Hollins is the only one who’s been to a Super Bowl. Maybe he can tell Williams what that experience was like, the stage and the fans and the lights, but Williams will have to bathe it in on his own.
His dad can hardly believe his son has such an opportunity. Not because he didn’t believe in Kyle’s ability – but because it’s the Super Bowl. “Not a lot of rookies get to do this,” Kyle said.
“Speechless. It is speechless,” Stephen said. “You grow up, you watch it, and you watch him play for many years just seeking a high school championship or the playoffs. The Super Bowl seemed like such a far-fetched thing.”
So if a year ago at this time, when Williams was preparing for the draft, if you had told him he would be playing for the Super Bowl, what would he have said?
“I would have said, you damn right,” Williams said. “But then I would have looked at you a little crazy, just because I have the confidence and a belief, but knowing how hard it is to get there, I would have kind of given you a little side eye.”