Isaiah Williams continuing his unlikely Jets rise from castoff to heartbeat

He is 5-foot something, 100-and-something pounds.He didn’t start lining up at wide receiver until his third season at Illinois.He went undrafted.

Then, less than two months into his second NFL season, he was cut for the third time.Text with Brian Costello all season as he brings Sports+ subscribers the latest Jets intel from on the field and off.

Isaiah Williams was repeatedly told what the world thought of his dream.“When you go through all these things, you go through being cut, you go through people telling you you’re not good enough, you’re not this, you’re too small, you’re too slow … I used to focus so much about what people thought about me and the box they put me in,” Williams said following Monday’s Jets practice.“There have been some moments in my NFL career — one being last year — it hurt a lot.”On Oct.

4, the Jets released Williams — who had been signed off the Bengals practice squad less than a month earlier — after he fumbled a kickoff and called for a fair catch at the 3-yard line during a loss in Miami. By the end of last season, Jets players voted him the team MVP after he returned two punts for touchdowns while averaging 14.1 yards per punt return and 30.2 yards per kick return.“Players like that demand respect and demand reps,” head coach Aaron Glenn said recently.“What makes him such a special player is that there are so many things he can do on offense.

We’ve got to give him the ball and make sure he’s involved because he’s an explosive player.”Williams, 25, is creating more opportunities for himself with a strong training camp, gaining the inside track for the Jets’ No.3 receiver spot — ahead of first-round pick Omar Cooper Jr.

— after starting the preseason opener against the Buccaneers.Last week, Jets wide receivers coach Shawn Jefferson described Williams as “a heartbeat on offense.”“If I was in a burning building, boop, boop, boop,” Jefferson said while mimicking dialing a p...