Jets’ Quinnen Williams opens up just before his first NFL game

As the Jets prepare to face the Giants on Thursday night in their first preseason game of the season, defensive lineman Quinnen Williams, taken with the third-overall pick in this year’s draft, sits down for some Q&A with Post columnist Steve Serby.

Q: Tell Jets fans what kind of guy you are.
A: I’m a very laid-back guy. … I’m just like a kid, I like to have fun, I like to put smiles on people’s faces, like to enjoy the moment, like to enjoy just my life in general or everything around me and everybody around me. Being a role model to other people, that’s the type of person I am.

But on the field, I feel like I’m a different person. … Like Iron Man. Iron Man you got Tony Stark with the nice suits and the rich cars and stuff, and then you got him in his Iron Man suits, so he’s like a destroyer, like he’s a war machine.

Q: That’s how you see yourself?
A: Yeah, that’s how I see myself when I put my helmet on.

Q: So how would you sum up your on-field mentality?
A: Dominate. I just want to dominate my job, dominate everybody who lines up in front of me. If I dominate and guys see me dominating around me and I got 10 more other guys dominating, it’s gonna be a dominating defense.

Q: Can you be this team’s Aaron Donald one day?
A: If it’s God willing, but right now I’m just working my butt off, learning from the veterans, learning from everybody, coaching staff, head coach [Adam Gase], [defensive coordinator] Gregg Williams, everybody, just learning how to be the best Quinnen Williams I can be right now.

Q: What impresses you most about Aaron Donald?
A: The way he uses his hands, the way he uses his speed and his leverage. Aaron Donald’s not the typical big defensive-line guy that you always see, and I’m not the big typical defensive-line guy you always see, but he uses get-off a lot, uses his hands, violent hands, and different things that he uses that’s him, different things that I use that’s me. But I take a lot of stuff from him, man, just a good role model in general.

Q: Do you study tape of him?
A: Oh yeah, all the time. He’s the GOAT. He’s the MVP. He’s the best defensive lineman there is right now. So I’ll be a fool if I didn’t watch him, didn’t learn from him.

Q: Who else do you watch?
A: I watch Fletcher Cox a lot too. Ndamukong Suh … a lot of guys up front, just dominant pass rushers, dominant run-stopping guys.

Q: You’re a student of the game?
A: Yes sir.

Q: Sounds to me like you’re driven to be great.
A: Yeah for sure, for sure driven to be great, because I feel like anything you do, if you’re not driven to be great, why do it? I’m sure everybody wants to be the best military guy. If you want to be the best football player, be the best football player. Why do something if you’re not driven to be great at what you do?

Q: You once had a lot of doubters. How did that motivate you?
A: It really didn’t motivate me, man. Everything you do, you’re gonna have doubters, you’re gonna have haters. I know who I am, I know who I got behind me, I got my family behind me and the people who know who I am and I’m just gonna stay true to myself, I’m gonna work my tail off every day and try to be the best person I could be. Like hanging out with the right group of guys also, like I got a great group of guys, great group of veterans in here, man, that is willing to help me become the best player ever, the best player on this team, the best player ever, so I’m just thankful to have a great group of guys around me.

Q: That’s a high goal, to be the best player ever.
A: Yeah it is, but I feel like if you’re not shooting at a high goal, like what are you shooting for?

Q: What did you like so much about Michael Vick growing up?
A: Oh, I liked everything about Michael Vick, man, I was an Atlanta Falcons fan, I always played “Madden” growing up and Michael Vick was the first person I went to go get because he was fast, he was elusive and he was a playmaker, everything he did. And he had the swag. Like every time he came on the field, he came with swag and he came with tenacity and confidence.

Q: Was he your boyhood idol?
A: I liked Warren Sapp a lot growing up, I had the Warren Sapp little action figure with No. 99 of the Buccaneers jersey on it, man. I just wanted to be Warren Sapp, man, growing up. He was a dominant defensive-line guy, but also he had like (defensive back’s) feet, like he can do the spin move all the time. He was a big guy with athletic ability, so Warren Sapp was my dawg.

Q: Athletes in other sports you admire?
A: I’m a big LeBron fan in basketball, just because a lot of stuff that he does I want to do. Just like he started a school, and I want to start a school in my neighborhood also. I trained at Mamba Sports Academy, so I got a chance to meet Kobe in California. When they got on the court, they know they’re the best player on the court. Not just knowing it, they train to be the best player on the court. So when they get on the court, it’s like nobody could stop them because they train that way. On the field and off the field, both of ’em got great legacies they left behind for their kids and things like that also. Shaq also, because Shaq was that dude who wanted to destroy anybody in front of him, wanted to beat up on anybody in front of him, wanted to just humiliate everybody in front of him. And then, off the field, he did a lot of business work also.

Q: What advice did Kobe Bryant give you?
A: He gave me a lot of advice, man. I had a lot of questions about me coming in, my maturity level, and I just asked him a lot of questions like how going straight from high school to the pros was and he just gave me a lot of advice on different money choices: the bad things that he did, the good things that he did. It just helped me out a lot. He gave me a lot of advice on staying true to who I am, don’t let money, don’t let fame, don’t let anything change me.

Q: Gregg Williams?
A: I feel like he’s an amazing man, the mindset that he has and the things he holds us by. I’m a real big discipline person, [Alabama] coach [Nick] Saban taught me a lot about discipline, effort, toughness, pride about what you do, and Gregg believes in the same things. I expect hard coaching from him, I expect hard coaching from everybody because I know at the end of the day they’re gonna help me and they got my best interests.

Q: What is he like in the meeting rooms?
A: The same way. He’s an alpha male, so he’s gonna let you know he’s an alpha male. It’s like the leader of the pack, man. He’s the leader of the pack, so if you follow his lead, you’re gonna be a great person and a great dawg also.

Q: Are you an alpha male?
A: Oh, for sure. For sure.

Q: You’re like a gentle giant off the field.
A: I feel like I’m an alpha male off the field because I set great examples. I feel I set great examples for the youth, great examples for people behind me, and just in general. You don’t have to be the most aggressive person to be an alpha male.

Q: Do you talk trash?
A: Not for real, I smile a lot, I laugh a lot.

Q: Why?
A: Like when you’re playing against somebody, they know they can’t stop you, it’s like funny so … to me it’s funny.

Q: Do guys trash-talk you?
A: When I played in college, a lot of guys trash-talked me. They’ll try to get you off your game, but you gotta think about it like I’ve been coached by Coach Saban, I’ve been called the most inappropriate things ever, not by Coach Saban, but just in general playing football my whole life. So that was just like, bro, I’m beating you, so you gotta give another tactic to try to get me off my game, so it’s not gonna work. I smile a lot, laugh a lot on the field.

Q: Which quarterback would you like to sack?
A: All of ’em.

Q: Le’Veon Bell?
A: Man, he’s like a dawg all around! It’s like man, like we got a weapon on our team, man. He’s just a great leader all around. He’s just like me, man, he likes the positive vibes all the way around. It’s just great to have somebody who I looked up to growing up. It’s just dope to have him on the team.

Q: Was Big Baby one of your nicknames?
A: I don’t know who started that, I hate that nickname. I think the fact that I don’t have face hair and I look like a kid, so they call me Big Baby, but I don’t answer to it.

Q: When did they start calling you that?
A: I think when I was going through the draft process, like fans and stuff started calling me that.

Q: Well you’ve got a little mustache …
A: I’m growing it out now so I can look like a young adult (smile).

Q: You have a tattoo on your leg that says “Action Speaks Louder Than Words.”
A: If you speak it, there’s always gonna be that question mark like, “Can he do it? Can he not do it?” It’s generated for me a lot of ways like being a leader in my own household, like I can’t tell my little brother and sister to make A’s and B’s when I’m not doing it. I gotta always set the example.

Q: Pregame routine?
A: They’re not really like exciting, like I gotta listen to Kevin Gates a lot. I’ll probably eat some Oreos to get my sugar going. That’s about it.

Q: Since you can cook, what would you make if you invited a teammate over?
A: I love breakfast. I’m gonna cook something I’ll eat, I’m not gonna ask you what you want to eat (smile).

Q: How good a pro is Tua Tagovailoa going to be?
A: He’s gonna be a great pro. I feel like it’s so many guys at Alabama I can name right now, man, that’s gonna be amazing pros. The boy’s got that great confidence, great talent.

Q: You love cars. What are you driving now?
A: I don’t got a car right now.

Q: What are you going to drive?
A: I don’t know just yet. I love old-school cars.

Q: Like what?
A: A ’69 Mustang, a ’79 Chevelle. I love a Murder Nova.

Q: Worst thing you saw growing up in West Birmingham, Ala.?
A: I heard about ’em, I read about ’em, murders and all that stuff that go on. I never seen it myself, I stayed like to myself. Me and my family, we really pushed school and sports first because my mom was an educator and my dad was just a hard-working man. So he always put in our head whatever we do, we’re gonna work hard at it. I had a great household.

Q: You had to get a certain grade to play football?
A: We had to get I believe it was no more than one C. My brother [Quincy] had two C’s and he had to miss a quarter or something like that in middle school.

Q: How about you?
A: You can ask anybody, I loved school. So school always came first for me, school always came easy to me, just learning, picking up things came easy to me.

Q: When are you getting your braces off?
A: I got six months left.

Q: Looking forward to that day?
A: Oh yeah, for sure! I think I want Invisaligns.

Q: Your agent, Nicole Lynn?
A: That’s my dawg! I’m so happy I got her as an agent. She’s the most like wonderful person I ever met, just down to earth. I went from a dorm room, I went from just being a college student, don’t know about taxes, didn’t know about credit, didn’t know about putting a down payment on the apartment, she helped me out with a lot, man. She helped me out with learning different things in politics, keeping up with the most important things in history. It’s just amazing to have a person who’s got my best interests at heart I know that’s not gonna take advantage of me if I need her.

Q: Why did you choose her?
A: She came with discipline, she came with organization, she came with toughness because she’s a female inside of a male industry, so she got to be tough. So the different things that she came with was like the things I built my life on from coming from Coach Saban. And hard-working, like she works her butt off every day, every night, she lets me know everything.

Q: Playing on the big, bright New York stage?
A: It’s football. I’ve been playing football since I was 6 and I played in three national championships, a lot of big games. It’s just football to me.

Q: You carry the memory of your late mother with you every day, right?
A: Not really the memory of her, but just the fundamental things she taught me, just the foundation things she taught me about just being a man in general, just being a great person in general, just being a great teammate in general. I take that with me everywhere I go. Everything I do, I make sure I take those values with me.

Q: Describe her for me.
A: Just discipline. The same way she treated her students in the classroom, she treated us the same way. I know so many students DMing me now like, “Bro, your mom taught me.” People I never met before, people I never talked to, they’re like 22 years old, 25. She inspired a lot of students.

Q: It took you a while to get over her passing nine years ago?
A: That was my best friend, that was somebody who I always was with, always talked to. I was so isolated to myself. Like anti-social almost. [Giants DL and fellow Alabama product] Dalvin Tomlinson, his mom had passed away also, and we were just talking a long time just about different things we were going through at the same time, and it just really opened me up.

Q: Three dinner guests?
A: Beyoncé, Michael Jordan and Tupac.

Q: Favorite movie?
A: “Mission Impossible.”

Q: Favorite actor?
A: Idris Elba.

Q: Favorite actress?
A: Angelina Jolie.

Q: Favorite singer/entertainer?
A: Kevin Gates.

Q: Favorite meal?
A: Anything breakfast-related.

Q: Career goals?
A: I really haven’t thought about that right now.

Q: How about personal goals for this season?
A: I haven’t thought about that either. I’m still learning how to be an NFL pro. This is my first training camp, I haven’t played in my first preseason game. I’m just really just focused on not messing up (smile).