Assuming WR Mike Williams puts on his pads for Week 18’s regular-season finale against the Cincinnati Bengals, he’ll become just the second player since post-Great Depression to play in 18 in a single year.
We noted it way back when Williams and EDGE Preston Smith were acquired at the trade deadline. The league’s relatively new 18-week, 17-game schedule made playing in 18 games even possible since football’s earliest days. Quirks in their schedules, Williams’ Jets and Smith’s Packers had not had their bye week yet, while Pittsburgh had passed theirs, opening the door for 18 appearances to be possible.
Both were trending to reach that mark late in the season. But Smith became a healthy scratch for the Christmas Day loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, maxing him out at 17 games. Williams dressed and played his 17th game of the year, one away from 18.
In modern times, the only other player to appear in 18 is Seattle Seahawks DT Leonard Williams. Dealt from the New York Giants to the Seahawks mid-season, he appeared in all 18 weeks and made 17 starts in 2023. Look for a player before him, and you have to turn the page to the NFL’s infancy. In 1930, ends Tony Kostos and Cookie Tackwell played in 18 across the Frankford Yellow Jackets and Minneapolis Red Jackets, two long-defunct franchises.
Per Pro Football Reference, 16 players have previously played in at least 18 contests. All of them, besides Leonard Williams and Mike Williams, should he get there, were with Frankford from 1925-1930. In those early days, the NFL wasn’t regulated, and teams often made up their own schedules, searching for teams that were willing and able to play them. Schedules weren’t nearly uniform the way they are today. For example, in 1930, the champion Green Bay Packers played 14 regular season games. The New York Giants played 17, the Yellow Jackets 18, while Providence’s club had just 11.
Colleges were even crazier in their early days. The 1899 Sewanee Tigers, considered one of the greatest squads ever to be assembled, once played five games in six days. And you thought the Steelers’ schedule was tough. By the way, Sewanee won them all and didn’t allow a single point over that stretch.
The low-hanging fruit is while Mike Williams has played in every game, he’s been invisible for most of them. With the Jets, he caught 12 passes across nine games. In Pittsburgh, he’s averaging even fewer. Eight games, eight catches. Williams’ mark will be a footnote, not a major achievement. But we love all things weird and quirky, and it’s a Sunday without Steelers football. If there’s anything to pick spirits up during a three-game losing streak, it’s the little things like this.
