A Man, and a Team, on a Mission
Jameson Williams received a promotion this offseason, will he finally become the player the Lions want him to be?
The prime free agent market and NFL draft came and went, and not only did the Detroit Lions not add a meaningful wide receiver, they let their WR2 from last year walk. Josh Reynolds is now a Denver Bronco. Amon Ra St. Brown is incredibly rich. And Jameson Williams now has massive expectations on his shoulders.
Williams will enter the Lions’ 2024 season — the most important in the franchise’s history — as the team’s WR2. He will be a member of their best 11 on offense after Detroit chose not to bring anyone in to replace Reynolds. Is it a huge burden to place on the young receiver who has not shown anything in his career to far that would indicate that he could handle it.
The 12th overall pick in the 2022 NFL Draft has largely skated by unnoticed two years into his career. He rarely comes up in bust conversations despite having notched just 395 yards and three touchdowns over his entire career so far. The Minnesota Vikings’ Justin Jefferson puts up numbers like that across two games.
One reason Williams may have avoided the bust conversation is because of the faith the Lions have shown in him, however. They traded up to select him high in the first round, knowing his rookie year would be clouded by the ACL tear that ended his college career. Despite obviously not having put up the numbers expected of him since, the coaching staff has still sung his praises at every opportunity. Leadership has never faltered and their faith in him never seems to have been shaken. Heading into a season where the Lions have Super Bowl expectations, they chose to give him an unearned promotion.
That faith was reinforced last week, as the receiver impressed in OTAs and received high praise from his head coach.
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“If you said, give me one player who is the most improved from that start to finish [since April], Jamo is that guy right now,” Dan Campbell told reporters. “He is a man on a mission.”
The purported improvement would be welcome, as he was nowhere near where he should have been last time we saw him. While many try to write off his poor sophomore year as just him not being up to speed yet, it’s a poor excuse. Williams looked bad in training camp. And while missing four games through suspension can set a player back, it shouldn’t to the extent that it did Williams.
A lot of players miss four games (Williams, as a note, missed the season finale to make it five for the season) and are more productive than the young receiver. And unlike the many NFL players who miss a month or more of action through injury, Williams did not have to rehab or anything to come back. When he was finally suited up for Detroit he should have, if anything, felt refreshed after not being hit for a month.
The production never came for Williams, but the glimpses of what he could be came often enough to maintain hope. The deep catch against the Dallas Cowboys that kept Detroit in the game early. A dagger touchdown catch against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. These moments, while sporadic, have always done just enough to tithe you over until the next moment of excellence.
Detroit’s brass — which had an incredibly aggressive offseason — seems to have seen enough too. Williams, despite averaging a paltry 20 yards per NFL game he has suited up in, received a promotion heading into 2024.
“My mindset has just been to get better. Do better than I did last year. Help the team out more in a lot of ways,” Williams told reporters at OTAs last week. “I’ve been putting in work since the season ended.”
Beyond the obvious fact that a coach will want to speak well of his guys, Campbell’s comments about Williams’ offseason could signal a shift of some sort. This is the first offseason that will be normal for the young receiver, who turned 23 during spring. His rookie year was eaten by rehab from his knee injury. Last year, the looming gambling suspension clouded his training camp and preseason.
While Williams is not an outwardly emotional player, he comes off as very soft spoken and almost coy with the media during press sessions, the disjointed start to his career so far has had to weigh on him. He was awful last preseason, but you could imagine that knowing he would soon have to step away from the team would hurt his focus.
“He has a bright future,” Carlton Davis, a Super Bowl-winning corner brought in by the Lions this offseason, said about Williams at OTAs. “He has so many tools in his toolbox. He can beat you running fast. He can snap down. He’s a threat in a lot of different ways.”
His future may be bright, and he has received a promotion on the depth chart this year to prove it. For the Lions sake, and his own, he has to live up to his billing this year and have a huge 2024. If he doesn’t, he’ll be the most consequential bust in Lions history.