Cj
Williams.
Cj
Williams.
Stanford· 6'1"· 203 lb· 4.53s 40
R6 · #203 · Jacksonville Jaguars"A four-star recruit who needed three transfers-worth of patience to get one starting season — the day-three price was about separation and age, not hands or toughness."Pre-draft read
He is a big-bodied possession receiver who wins with body control, catch strength, and route detail rather than speed. He plays bigger than his listed measurements on contested balls, tracking the ball late, adjusting outside his frame, and finishing through contact with reliable hands. The 50/50 rep and the back-shoulder throw are repeatable wins on his tape.
He runs a full route tree with consistent play speed and understands zone spacing, sitting down in windows and working back to the quarterback on scramble drills. He lacks the burst to defeat press cleanly off the line and does not create late separation at break points, so most of his catches are earned in traffic rather than in space. He is a willing and effective run blocker on the perimeter.
West Coast timing pass game looking to create rhythm on short and intermediate routes, with some spread elements to find his best matchups
Rotational Year 1 contributor by catching a high volume of un-contested targets and blocking on the perimeter; ceiling as a WR3 in a ball-control offense.
This receiver's value collapses in an Air Raid or spread offense that prioritizes vertical separation and downfield explosion.
CJ Williams projects as a high-floor possession receiver in a timing-based scheme that does not ask him to win vertically, making him a good fit for the Jaguars' system.
CJ Williams — 2025 regular-season highlights, Stanford WR
Full-season cutup of the contested catches, back-shoulder wins and perimeter blocking that defined his senior year.
CJ Williams vs. San Jose State highlights
His career game: 11 receptions for 130 yards, the clearest sample of the volume role he handled at Stanford.
CJ Williams pre-draft media call
Predraft availability covering the USC-to-Wisconsin-to-Stanford path and how the senior-year breakout happened.
CJ Williams projects as a contested-catch possession receiver who provides a blocking floor. Teams are acquiring a player whose primary role involves winning balls in traffic and contributing to the run game. His collegiate usage indicates he can handle significant volume, even if his explosiveness is considered average.
A Mater Dei four-star recruit, Williams took four years and three schools to become a starting college receiver. After four catches at USC in 2022 and 31 catches over two seasons at Wisconsin, he transferred to Stanford for 2025 and recorded 59 receptions for 749 yards and six touchdowns. He earned Honorable Mention All-ACC honors that year and was the first Stanford receiver to post three straight 100-yard games since 1999.
Evaluators graded Williams as a late-round WR4/WR5 with special teams value and blocking as a foundation. His pro day numbers, including a 4.53 40-yard dash and 35-inch vertical, confirmed tape analysis of an above-average athlete with plus play strength but short arms for his profile. One strong senior season, at 23 years old, was not enough to significantly boost his draft stock, and he was selected in the sixth round.
- 01
Contested-catch reliability
tracks the deep ball late, adjusts to throws outside his frame and finishes through contact with strong hands, which is how he turned 92 targets into 59 catches on a Stanford offense with no other credible threat.
- 02
Route detail and zone feel
runs the full tree at consistent play speed, settles in soft spots against zone and works back to the quarterback on broken plays, traits that keep him on the field for a coaching staff.
- 03
Passing-down role
his heaviest CFBD usage share in 2025 came on passing downs (.184), the reps where a defense knows a throw is coming and he still had to win, and his third-down PPA (0.628) was his best down split.
- 04
Willing perimeter blocker
graded well by PFF as a run blocker and was asked to do it often, the trait Jacksonville's front office cited by name when explaining the pick.
- 05
Play strength and frame
a thick 203 pounds with a 6'5" wingspan and 14 bench reps, so he absorbs press contact even when he cannot avoid it and holds his lane through jams.
- 01
Separation ceiling
lacks the burst to beat press cleanly off the line and does not accelerate out of breaks, so NFL corners with recovery speed can play tight and take away the intermediate route entirely.
- 02
Ordinary explosiveness for the volume
a 0.567 PPA per play in 2025 sits at just the 64th percentile despite elite usage, the statistical fingerprint of a receiver who moves the chains but does not tilt a defense.
- 03
Short arms for the profile
30 5/8" arms undercut a game built on contested catches and reduce his catch radius against longer defensive backs than the ACC offered.
- 04
One-year production record
94 career catches in 48 games with 63 of them coming after his third season, which forces a projection off a single senior sample against a weak schedule.
Relative Athletic Score (Kent Lee Platte) benchmarks combine/pro-day numbers against every measured prospect at the position since 1987. 10.00 is elite; 5.00 is average.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.53sp50
- Vertical
- 35inp50
- Broad jump
- 128inp50
- Three-cone
- 7.40sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.47sp50
- Bench
- 14repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Rec | Yds | TD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Navy | 7 | 8 | 80 | 1 |
| 2021 | Western Carolina | 1 | 2 | 28 | 0 |
| 2022 | USC | 11 | 4 | 34 | 0 |
| 2023 | Wisconsin | 13 | 15 | 148 | 0 |
| 2024 | Wisconsin | 12 | 16 | 248 | 2 |
| 2025 | Stanford | 12 | 60 | 757 | 6 |
| Career | — | 56 | 105 | 1295 | 9 |
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
- Ben GulbransonQB22%
- Elijah BrownQB14%
- Chico HoltTE9%
#3 of 14 tracked contributors · Produced in line with his snap share · Offense explosiveness 1.22 (p39) · CFBD — usage x PPA per tracked player
Honors
- 2025 Honorable Mention All-ACC
- 2025 Irving S. Zeimer Award (Stanford)
- First Stanford WR with three straight 100-yard games since Troy Walters (1999)
- 2024 Academic All-Big Ten
- 2022 U.S. Army All-American Bowl
Practice-squad-to-active-roster receiver whose value is the blocking, the fourth-phase reps and situational red zone size.
Late-round big-slot/X body who blocked, won contested throws and turned a special-teams role into years of rotational receiving snaps.
Camp body who never separates against NFL press and gets cut before the fifth receiver spot is ever decided.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Jacksonville spent the 203rd pick on a receiver the organization described in terms of toughness, blocking and attacking the football rather than speed or separation, which is an unusually honest public statement of what the evaluation actually was. He entered camp behind an established group and competing for the back of the depth chart, with special teams as the realistic path to game-day activation and the blocking as the trait that keeps him in twelve and thirteen personnel packages. The receiving projection was always modest: a possession target for third down and the red zone, not a player who changes coverage rules.
The honest read on his college career is that the recruiting ranking distorted three years of expectations, and that the one season with real volume answered the durability and usage questions without answering the separation one. If he lasts, it will be because the blocking and the hands buy him time to refine release work against professional press; if he does not, the tape said why before the draft — everything he catches, he has to catch in a crowd.