Being named a team MVP is similar in process to winning a pentathlon. You may or may not be the best at swimming, sword play, obstacle avoidance, shooting and running, but if you're the best at all five combined, you win a gold medal. Or in the case of the Jets players weighing, say, five qualities of each of their teammates — big-play ability, versatility, work ethic, opportunism and determination — you are chosen MVP.

A week ago, Jets wide receiver/kick returner Isaiah Williams wasn't thinking in terms of honors and pats on the back. "The biggest thing on my mind is this team and us growing every week and getting better," he said then. "If accolades come, that'd be a blessing. But honestly, it hasn't been on my mind at all."

Then accolades came Williams' way Friday morning at the team meeting when he was named the Jets' Curtis Martin Team Most Valuable Player by a vote of his Green & White peers. His reaction upon being bestowed with the 65th annual MVP award: "It's a blessing."

Williams may have first been on his teammates' minds because of seemingly unscalable early-season hurdles. Signed off Cincinnati's practice squad after the season started, he had returned a few kicks for the Jets until Game 4 at Miami, when he committed a pair of second-half return mistakes — he fumbled away the second-half kickoff at the Jets 36, then fair-caught a punt at the Jets 3. He was waived the next week.

What chance did an originally undrafted free agent, released by his third team in less than a year, have in the NFL?

"In that moment after I got cut, I knew that God still had good plans for my life," Williams said. "But if you would have told me I would be Team MVP by the end of the season, I would have probably looked at you crazy, if I'm being honest. After I got cut, I thought I was going to be on practice squad for the rest of the year just working, getting better. And then if the opportunity came, it came."

Two days later, he was re-signed to the Jets' practice squad, and a week after that he was back on the active roster. And he hasn't looked back since.

"It's been tremendous," special teams coordinator Chris Banjo said of Williams' season. "To see the way he started the year and what he's been able to do since, his commitment to who he is as a person but also his growth and development as a player, has been really cool to see."

Williams may have first registered in fans' consciousness around midseason. Some of his 170 total kick-return yards set up two fourth-quarter touchdown drives that helped lift the Jets over the Bengals 39-38 for their first win of the season. Three days later, Williams was named the AFC Special Teams {layer of the Week.

Or perhaps it was with his 74-yard punt-return touchdown in the win over Cleveland. Or, four games later, his 78-yard PR score against the Dolphins at MetLife Stadium. Or maybe in between those games, it was his 83-yard kickoff runback in the victory over Atlanta.

"I didn't think I was going to get another opportunity this year, if I'm being honest," Williams said during the Jets' bye week. "My biggest thing was I'm going to come back to the practice squad, work my tail off, get better every single day, make my teammates better in every aspect. And when I do get my opportunity — if I do get another opportunity — I'm going to make the most of it."

He did that and then some. Going into the season finale at Buffalo on Sunday, Williams is second in the NFL in kickoff-return average at 30.2 and sixth in punt-return average at 14.1. In the Pro Bowl voting, he was named a second alternate at return specialist.

And to display his versatility, Williams moved solidly into the WR rotation beginning with Cincinnati. He put in 303 offensive snaps in the last nine games, during which he caught 21 passes for 169 yards and ran three times for 34 yards.

"It's been good, just being able to go out there with the guys and have more opportunities to show what I can do on the field," Williams said of becoming more a part of the offensive operation. "Showing that a returner can also make plays as a receiver has been a blessing."

Of course OC Tanner Engstrand has noticed No. 18's contributions.

"For Isaiah to be prepared in that moment when his time came around again and to seize that opportunity, I think it just speaks to his character and his work ethic and who he is as a person," Engstrand said. "I also think it can be a great learning tool for other people that could be in that same situation. You don't know how many shots you're going to get, but when you do get one, you've got to take advantage of it and I think it's been really nice to see him do that."

What's telling about this award is how few players who fit Williams' undrafted-free-agent, special-teams, journeyman profile are voted MVP by any team. Consider:

■ If Williams is called a wide receiver, he's the first WR to win the ward since Brandon Marshall in 2015 and the second to win it since Laveranues Coles in 2006.

■ If he's a returner first and foremost, which of course he was, he is one of the few players with an emphasis on return experience to win the team award, with others being RBs Dick Christy in 1962, Bruce Harper in 1980 and Leon Washingotn in 2007 and WR JoJo Townsell in 1989. The Jets' only special-teamer to earn the honor: ageless kicker Pat Leahy, who took the title in 1990.

■ And as an undrafted free agent, either by the Jets or another team, Williams is just the fifth in franchise history to be crowned Jets MVP. The others: S Dainard Paulson (1964), FB Clark Gaines (1976), Harper (1980) and Leahy (1990).

Williams reflected on his time last year in Detroit, interacting with then-Lions DC Aaron Glenn, then being reunited with Glenn on the Jets this August.

"I was on Cincinnati's practice squad at the beginning of the season and I got a call and it was from Coach AG and it was like a full-circle moment," he recalled. "You know when people see what you do on a day-to-day basis, it might not be a relationship where you talk every day but it's like a mutual respect, like I respect what you are doing. I feel like that, what happened in Detroit led to this moment. And throughout the season, I remember the first time we talked on the phone when I first got to New York, it was like, 'Bro, I believe in you. All you have to do is come here, be you and you will fit in perfectly fine.'

"Hearing that from the head ball coach, it gave you a confidence, like I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be and all I have to do is just be me and be the best me and get better every single day. And that was his message to me throughout the year."