So, Milton Williams may have packed his bags for New England. But there’s no love lost with Philly because he helped them complete the revenge arc on Patrick Mahomes. And that too, on the grandest of stages, in SB LIX. But he’s also walking away with something defensive coordinators across the league should be begging for: the Mahomes blueprint. The “here’s how you don’t get cooked in the fourth quarter” kind of intel. Trust him because he got Pat on the ground twice. Along with the 4 pressures and a forced fumble.
In short: Mahomes was out there seeing ghosts, and Williams was one of ’em. Now, he wants the league to feast on Pat. Like a typical grim reaper. Speaking on the Green Light with Chris Long, Williams dropped the Eagles’ D-line’s scheme to stop the Chiefs’ #15. And it’s not complicated.
“You got Mahomes, like… you know they gonna try to air it out. He gonna try to use the arm he got with the weapons he got. So. it was on us to try to affect the quarterback, you know, up the middle. That’s any quarterback’s weakness—I don’t care what quarterback you is. How fast you can get the ball out—if you can’t see or if you’re getting pressure right up the middle, that’s going to affect your read,” Milton told Long.
He added: “You gonna have to—you gonna start, like, later in the game, he started just looking at the line before he could even look at his receivers, because he’s so worried about us getting pressure. So that was our goal, for sure—to come in and just try to make sure we can affect him [Pat]. Because if you don’t, and you let him get through all his progressions and start playing sandlot ball… It could have got ugly for us.”
It didn’t get ugly for Philly. Phew! For KC, though, the ghosts are not leaving them. By the second half, Mahomes wasn’t scanning for Kelce — he was staring straight at the line, waiting for Williams and crew to tear through the B-gap again. You want to stop the Chiefs? Step one: get in Mahomes’ face without giving up the middle.
Well, Jalen Carter took that one seriously with a face-planting knock to Patrick Mahomes. He didn’t get fined for it. But, per Milton, you have to do exactly that, maybe avoid hitting him like that.
Williams has seen Mahomes three times now. And while Mahomes still had his numbers in the regular season, the postseason? Different story. That Super Bowl performance wasn’t a fluke. It was a masterclass in controlled chaos from a guy who didn’t even start full-time for Philly. He just kept showing up in big games. The Eagles knew it. The Patriots saw it. And $104 million later, now he’s their problem-solver.
The Eagles’ inability to afford Milton Williams’ starter salary, due to their stacked D-line, made it possible for New England. Plus, their need for a disruptor inside. Someone who didn’t need to blitz to leave a crater. Williams’ 90.4 pass rush grade, highest DT pressure rate in 2024 — those aren’t flukes either. That’s production meeting potential, and Belichick’s old blueprint coming back with a vengeance.
Patriots should be ready to embrace the Milton Williams’ storm
The ink was barely dry on his four-year, $104 million deal, and already the expectations are stacked higher than what one expects from an SB winner. But here’s the thing: Williams isn’t blinking.
He knows what’s coming. The bigger workload. The brighter spotlight. And the real pressure. “I thrive on people telling me I can’t do something, so bring it on,” he said, sounding like a man who’s been waiting for this call his whole career. And if you think the Patriots overpaid for a former rotational piece, think again — they’re betting big on the guy who has the lock to shut the postseason Mahomes.
Head coach Mike Vrabel didn’t sugarcoat it either. “I hope you want to play more than you played in Philadelphia,” he told Williams. And to that, Milton basically said, strap me in. He’s already in the lab, putting in that extra work, chasing something more than just paychecks and praise. “I want to be out there representing my teammates and this organization,” he said. That’s not lip service. That’s edge rusher talk.
Zack Martin, who spent a decade protecting quarterbacks and bulldozing defensive lines, had high praise for Williams too. And that matters. “He was the change-up guy,” Martin said. “Milton would come in with finesse.” Now imagine that finesse coming at full volume, full-time.
2025’s going to be the test. New England’s defense ranked 22nd in yards allowed last year. They didn’t bring in Milton Williams to keep that number steady. He’s here to flip the script. And he knows exactly what that means. “This is probably going to jump that, for sure,” he said. Big words. But that’s the energy you want when you’re building around a storm.
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