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Patriots’ Milton Williams wanted to play through ankle injury before being ruled out
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- Patriots’ Milton Williams wanted to play through ankle injury before being ruled out
The post Patriots' Milton Williams wanted to play through ankle injury before being ruled out appeared first on ClutchPoints .
If it were up to Milton Williams , he would've played the entirety of the New England Patriots ' 27-14 win over the New York Jets on Thursday night.
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The Patriots' standout defensive tackle wanted to remain in the game after suffering an ankle injury on the Jets' first offensive possession, head coach Mike Vrabel told reporters following Thursday's win. However, the team opted to rest him as a precaution, but Williams will undergo further testing on his ankle on Friday.
"Maybe," Vrabel told reporters when asked if Williams might have returned to play had the Patriots been in a different spot on Thursday. "I made a decision that we felt like we should probably just start treating that thing and get ahead of it and see where he's at here tomorrow, the next couple of days, and try to weigh — again, he wanted to try to go. He's out here standing with me when guys are coming in, and he's excited for them, so I appreciate his leadership, but I just made a decision that I felt like was best for the team for his instance.
Williams suffered the ankle injury when he collided with teammate Christian Barmore as they tried to get after Jets quarterback Justin Fields . Williams immediately left the field and was clearly in pain as he went into the blue medical tent.
Shortly after, Williams went back to the Patriots' locker room before re-emerging on the sideline. He returned to action for a moment in the first half, but wound up being ruled out for the rest of the game in the second half.
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Milton Williams tweets support for Christian Barmore in Patriots' win over Jets
As Williams was sidelined for the second half of Thursday's game, he decided to take in the game the way many of us do by watching and tweeting at the same time.
"Yea Bmo," Williams wrote in a post to X with a couple of exclamation mark emojis following Barmore's sack of Fields in the fourth quarter of Thursday's win.
While the Patriots didn't necessarily need Williams in Thursday's game, they could've used his interior presence. That sack by Barmore was the Patriots' first sack of the day, coming on the Jets' final possession. Fellow defensive tackle Elijah Ponder added a sack later on that drive, but the Patriots struggled to get home on Fields for most of the day. New York's dual-threat quarterback didn't have a prolific day throwing the ball (116 passing yards), but he rushed for 67 yards and a touchdown in the Jets' loss to the Patriots.
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The Patriots will almost certainly need Williams going forward, though. He has 27 total tackles and 3.5 sacks this season, ranking third in pass-rush win rate among defensive tackles (14 percent) entering Thursday's game. He also had 35 pressures prior to Thursday, ranking second among defensive tackles , per Pro Football Focus.
Luckily for Williams and the Patriots, Williams will get some extra time to heal before the next time they take the field. They don't play again until Sunday, Nov. 23, when they travel to take on the Cincinnati Bengals .
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