How Javonte Williams lost 11 pounds in six weeks

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Javonte Williams looked like his old self this week as the Denver Broncos began training camp, and with good reason: He’s at the lightest weight of his NFL career, back to his college weight.

A day after Broncos coach Sean Payton detailed how he showed Williams film from his college days at North Carolina, Williams revealed just how much weight he lost: 11 pounds in the six weeks between the end of Broncos minicamp and the start of training camp.

That perfectly explains why the fourth-year running back showed a burst Wednesday that he didn’t demonstrate during the five offseason practices that were open to media observation. He exploded through holes and cut quickly this week in a way that he not only didn’t do in the spring — but in his 2023 season when he returned from a severe, multi-ligament knee injury suffered at Las Vegas four weeks into the 2022 campaign.

“It was just one of my goals to get a little slimmer, just to move a little bit better in training camp, things like that,” Williams said. “And he sent me a goal weight, and I got to it.”

HOW SEAN PAYTON BROUGHT IT UP

Payton broached the subject by turning on Williams’ North Carolina game film — but pretending that he didn’t know which half of the Tar Heels’ two-headed ground attack of 2020 was Williams, the other being current Cardinals back Michael Carter.

Telling anyone that they need to lose some weight is a delicate subject. But Williams took it well.

“[It’s] just the type of coach Coach Payton is,” Williams said. “I mean, he’s seen a lot of great running backs come through, so anything he say, I’m gonna listen to it.

“And just for him to even care and just to tell me, ‘This is what I want you to be when you come back to have the best chance to do what you gotta do,’ — so, that just by itself showed me that he cared.”

Payton’s words resonated with Williams.

“If he put that much effort into it,” Williams said, “I will, too.”

THE KEYS TO JAVONTE WILLIAMS LOSING WEIGHT IN A HURRY

“A whole lot of sacrifices,” Javonte Williams explained. “I think the biggest thing was I just didn’t eat after 7 p.m. I just cut all my snacks out because I like to snack a lot, like Takis and things like that.

“I cut all that out.”

Javonte Williams gave up eating after 7 p.m. and snacking on Takis … and shed 11 pounds in 6 weeks, emerging as a quicker runner for #BroncosCamp: pic.twitter.com/q4ekV5tWRh

— Andrew Mason (@MaseDenver) July 25, 2024

Williams said he felt a difference when he was doing pre-camp training.

“Probably about halfway through my training in North Carolina,” he said. “I just felt like I started feeling like my old self just moving.

“I felt a lot more shiftier, things like that.”

Watching him the first two days of training camp, the difference is obvious. The pads aren’t on, and that will reveal the full impact.

But based on the early returns, Williams looks like the running back who captured the NFL’s imagination three years ago. And for a Broncos team that likely needs to run in order to flourish, that’s the best news of the season’s dawn.