Jameson Williams, a Draft Bust? Or a Breakout Candidate?
The young Detroit Lions receiver has not produced much in his first two NFL seasons, but there is hope that he still might finally have his breakout
It’s been more than two calendar years since wide receiver Jameson William suffered a torn ACL during the College Football Playoff Final, but the injury still lingers over his career.
His 400 career receiving yards and three touchdowns through two NFL seasons scream bust for a player who was selected 12th overall by the Detroit Lions in 2022. Quentin Johnston, the Los Angeles Chargers receiver who is largely viewed as a draft bust, had 40 more receiving yards in his rookie year than Williams does over his first two seasons despite playing one fewer game.
Williams has eclipsed 60 yards in a single game just once in his career — a game where he caught a 63 yard pass. Only twice has he caught more than two passes in the same game.
But for some reason, it feels different for Williams, who turned 22 this week. It doesn’t seem like he’s an NFL talent that didn’t work out, but more a player on the verge of a breakout. Someone that needs things to finally click so he can become the superstar receiver the Lions believed he could be when they traded up to draft him.
He has missed a ton of games, with the knee injury in the national championship eating into much of his rookie year and a gambling suspension keeping him out of the lineup early last season. This can, to an extent, excuse his lack of production. But at some point, the production has to come. When he has been on the field, he’s only average 22 receiving yards per game, on par with third and fourth options on many teams around the league.
What Detroit chooses to do in the draft this spring might hinge on how head coach Dan Campbell and general manager Brad Holmes view Williams. Do they need another top-end receiver in their arsenal of weapons, a starting level talent to play across from all-pro Amon Ra St. Brown. Or do they already have that guy already on the roster in Williams?
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Williams told reporters after the 2022 draft that, had he been healthy enough to participate in the NFL Combine, he would have broken the NFL’s 40 yard dash record.
We will never know if he actually could meet those lofty expectations, but if there was one player on the Lions roster who could do it, it would be him.
The young wide receiver almost defines speed. There is not much defenders can do when he gets a clear running lane. At Alabama, he was torching NFL prospects in the SEC week-in-week-out. No one could stay in front of him. Speed runs in his DNA, with both of his parents and all three of his older siblings running track. He happened to be the fastest of all of them, he told reporters after the draft.
He showed off the afterburners during a game last fall against the New Orleans Saints, where he took a reverse out of the backfield for a 19 yard touchdown. He was pitched the ball around 12 yards deep in the backfield, built up speed as he turned the corner, then exploded through a gap on the outside. Before you could even blink, Williams was leaping into the endzone.
His encore came in the NFC Championship game. This time taking a pitch eight yards deep in the backfield, he built up speed and then danced through the San Francisco 49ers defense en route to a 42 yard touchdown run.
But one thing jumps out when looking at Williams two most memorable plays from 2023 — they were both rushing touchdowns. He is a wide receiver, why are his biggest plays coming on the ground?
Williams has made a few big plays through the air. His career best game came against the Dallas Cowboys at the end of 2023, where he caught a 63 yard bomb from Jared Goff that turned the game around when it seemed that it was escaping the team’s grasp. His only catch in the 2022 season was a 41 yard touchdown catch against the Minnesota Vikings.
Also last season, he caught a deep touchdown to put the dagger in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, had a near 40 yard catch against the Green Bay Packers and a 32 yard score against the Chicago Bears.
But these plays are still few and far between. A player who can burn the defense for a 35 yard catch every few games is great. What the Lions need more of, especially with a quarterback like Goff, is a guy who can consistently catch passes in the 10 to 15 yard range. Josh Reynolds filled this role last season for the team, effectively serving as WR2 and the team’s most reliable full-time boundary receiver. Reynolds is gone, so who can fill that role this season?
A deep threat is great. But a deep threat who can’t work in the intermediary and is occasionally used for trick plays in the run game is more of a luxury player you stash at WR4 and have return punts on the side. Williams is supposed to be so much more.
Detroit wanted him to be Tyreek Hill. He’s, right now, just Marvin Hall (Google that name if you’re a younger Lions fan).
It’s hard to imagine an introduction to the NFL more stilted than Williams’. The incredible disappointment of blowing out your knee during the biggest game of your life, and then helplessly watching them lose. Undergoing rehab from a serious surgery while going through the stressful preparations for the NFL draft. The uncertainty of it all. Williams was a projected top 15 pick before his injury, but there were fears the ACL tear would cause his stock to plummet.
He then had to slowly get back to speed and rebuild his confidence, all while trying to load into the NFL for the first time. The last football game he had completed was against the Cincinnati Bearcats. The next time he played was a mid-season NFL game against the Jacksonville Jaguars. Usually players get a rookie camp, OTAs, training camp and preseason before being thrown into the fire. The early weeks of the season are a mess for everyone, with every team in the league learning to play with one another. Williams came in raw, during a December game where teams had long put their early season hiccups behind them.
It was obviously tough for him to adjust at first. But he was a ghost, rarely appearing in the offense. He would finish the 2022 season with just two touches. A disappointment, sure, but he made those touches count. One was a 41 yard touchdown catch against the Vikings, the other was a 40 yard run against the Chicago Bears.
Williams’ second year was stunted too. A gambling suspension took him out of the lineup for the team’s first four games. While it is easy to blame the young receiver for his suspension, the rules he broke were confusing. He did not gamble on an NFL game, but instead placed a bet while on team property — which can include team planes, hotels and other facilities. He was initially suspended for six games, before the NFL conceded that it was too harsh. Williams was allowed to return to the lineup early. In the future, first offenses will carry just a two game penalty.
Excuses can only go so far, though. The young receiver struggled during training camp, to the point that he would have likely been competing to return kicks if he wasn’t a first round pick. He had the full offseason program despite his suspension, and still did little once he finally arrived for Detroit. He didn’t catch more than two passes in the same game until December 16, where he caught four against the Denver Broncos. His career high five receptions came a week later against the Vikings.
It was hard to get the ball into his hands. While Williams is fast, he doesn’t do a good job at getting his head around and tracking the ball in the air. He is late to find it and often can’t make the adjustment in time to haul it in. In the NFC Championship, a potential game changing touchdown pass sailed through his arms after he failed to corral it.
This is why offensive coordinator Ben Johnson started to use him in the run game, similar to how the New England Patriots revitalized Cordarelle Patterson’s career but converting him from wide receiver to running back. If he can’t catch, then just hand it to him. But a top 15 overall pick needs to be more. A WR2 on a Super Bowl winning team needs to be more.
Jameson Williams doesn’t say much. Almost a rarity at the receiver position, he does not seem interested in speaking to the media, trash talking opponents or even building a larger persona of some sort. While he shows exuberance on the field, with the media his focus seems almost entirely on football. His post-draft interview was him just nervously repeating platitudes about being excited to be in Detroit and to help the team win games. He looks more comfortable in more recent interactions with the media, but he’s still soft-spoken and gives relatively short answers that leave us little to draw from them.
But the media has had a lot to say about him. His letdown of a rookie season was followed by offseason videos of him playing with fireworks in some of Detroit’s less-than-friendly neighborhoods. A lot of commentators had a lot of things to say about that.
Then, the gambling suspension. A 21-year-old kid gambling isn’t anything particularly rare these days, but it did contribute to a growing narrative of a kid who just doesn’t care.
Williams has a strong relationship with his father. After he was drafted, the NFL showed him an emotional pre-recorded message from his dad, telling him that night was just step one in a long process to a “gold jacket” — the NFL Hall of Fame.
“Honestly, he signed up for this,” James Williams said of his son before the 2023 season. “You know, what comes with great praise, it’s going to come with greater criticism. And that just goes along with the game. You know, not everybody’s going to love you. Not everybody’s going to hate you.”
Jameson has handled the pressure surprisingly well, it seems. He hasn’t shown even a slight glimmer of a crack despite facing a barrage of media criticism — like what I’m doing here — over the past year. He seems totally focused on his game. He told reporters that while he was away from the team because of his suspension that he caught 100 balls every day from his Jugs machine.
“I’m really eager because it’s been a lot of stepping stones and I’m just ready to get everything cleared up and just play ball,” he told reporters at a football camp last offseason.
There shouldn’t be any stepping stones for Williams this season. For the first time in his NFL career, he should suit up in week 1.