Campbell: Williams must focus on ‘all the little things’
Dan Campbell is doing his best to keep expectations manageable for Jameson Williams, both as he returns from his four-game suspension this week and for the remainder of the season.
Williams officially rejoined the Detroit Lions on Monday, three days after the NFL and NFL Players Association agreed to new gambling rules that lopped two weeks off the sixgame suspension he was given this spring for betting on non-NFL games from an NFL facility.
The Lions had morning meetings, a team weight lift and an hourlong practice Monday, and will have a padded practice Tuesday before an off day Wednesday in advance of Sunday’s game against the Carolina Panthers.
Williams should make his season debut this week at Ford Field, but Campbell said it likely will be in a supporting role for a Lions team that sits comfortably atop the NFC North with a 3-1 record and is coming off a 34-20 trouncing of the Green Bay Packers.
“If he does play, he can’t play 60 plays,” Campbell said. “That’s not smart. So we can’t do that to him. So we’ll see where it goes. It’s all about improvement, no different than the rest of the team. Every week we just got to get a little bit better. He just needs to get a little bit better and we’ll take it from there.”
The No. 12 pick of last year’s draft, Williams’ NFL career has gotten off to a slow start.
He played just six games last season in his return from a college knee injury, finished the season with one catch and one rushing attempt, and missed more than two weeks of training camp this spring with two different hamstring injuries.
Campbell said last week Williams is healthy now, but insisted Monday the team needs “to see where he’s at with football” to figure out how much it can depend on him going forward.
“This’ll be his first week back, so we’ll take every day, see how he does,” Campbell said.
The Lions rank eighth in the NFL in total and scoring offense after five games, but could use Williams’ field-stretching ability to further diversity their offense.
Amon-Ra St. Brown leads the Lions with 26 catches and 331 yards receiving, and rookies Sam LaPorta and Jahmyr Gibbs have emerged as two of Jared Goff’s favorite targets through four weeks. But Josh Reynolds (12 catches, 215 yards) is the only other Lions receiver averaging more than two catches per game and No. 4 receiver Marvin Jones has two catches for 8 yards and has been a non-factor on offense this season.
Campbell said his only goals for Williams this fall are to be a reliable, dependable player when it comes to executing his job.
“Get lined up, know where you’re supposed to be. We’re going to get the depth out of you and we can count on you to be where you’re supposed to be, when you’re supposed to be there. That’s it,” Campbell said. “I’m not looking for yards, I’m not looking for explosives, not looking for touchdowns. Man, just be a reliable receiver, like any of those guys in the room. That’s it. And to me, that’s a good year. Cause we’re about winning. It’s not about one player, and that’ll help us win.”
If Williams does that, Campbell said he shouldn’t feel the need to make up for lost time and can assimilate into the offense naturally.
“I think what we’ve done a really good job of in these four weeks is, man, we are by committee,” Campbell said. “The way that we’ve had production is it’s taken all of us. That O-line’s important to us and our skill guys stepping up. That’s from tight ends to backs to receivers, and so everybody’s got a job to do. And your number’ll get called at a certain time but we’re not a one guy’s carrying the load, that’s not how we work here.
“Certainly, we have players that we depend on, on that side of the ball that have come up big for us. You know who they are, but no, I think that’s just a — he just needs to come in and I’m not worried about him working, he will, and it’s just about polishing all the little things.”