The Washington Commanders have hired former Grambling quarterback D. J. Williams, the son of franchise great and fellow Grambling quarterback Doug Williams, to be their quarterbacks coach.
D. J. Williams served as Atlanta’s quarterbacks coach this season and was the Falcons’ assistant quarterbacks coach/offensive assistant in 2024. D.J. spent five years with New Orleans as an offensive assistant before joining Atlanta. He also spent 2018 working in the Saints’ football operations department.
D. J. participated in the NFL/Black College Football Hall of Fame quarterback coaching summit from 2019 to ’21, and again in ’23. He was the quarterbacks coach of the National Team at the 2023 Senior Bowl.
He played at Grambling from 2011 to 2014 in the second of his father’s two stints (1998-2002, 2011-13) leading the G-Men.
Doug Williams, a two-time black college player of year at Grambling and first round draft choice of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1978, became the first black college quarterback to win the Super Bowl when he led the then-named Redskins to a 42-10 rout of Denver for the Super Bowl XXII title in 1988. He completed 18 of 29 passes for a then-record 340 passing yards with four touchdown passes in that game to earn Super Bowl MVP honors, the first black quarterback or black college player to earn that award.
Williams came back to the Washington franchise in 2014 as a personnel executive after stints as head coach at Morehouse and Grambling. For the Tigers, he won three consecutive Southwestern Athletic Conference titles from 2000 to 2002. He was promoted to the position of Washington’s senior vice president of player personnel in June 2017 and following a front office restructure after the hiring of Ron Rivera as head coach, Williams was named the team’s senior vice president of player development.
He remains with the organization now as a senior adviser to general manager Adam Peters.