Williams is in line to be ‘full-time starter’ in 2024
Receiver draws praise from Campbell for development
INDIANAPOLIS – The Detroit Lions are counting on Jameson Williams to play an expanded role in their offense in 2024.
“He is going to push to be a full-time starter now and that’s what we’re looking for,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said last week at the NFL combine. “And we said it before, everybody grows at a different rate and maybe it’s taken him a little bit longer, but he is developing and he’s growing.”
Williams caught 24 passes for 354 yards in 12 games last season after serving a four-game suspension to start the year.
Williams made 10 straight starts late in the season and played often as the Lions’ No. 2 receiver, where his deep speed served as a complement to Amon-Ra St. Brown and tight end Sam LaPorta in the passing game.
Williams had just two games with more than three catches, December wins over the Denver Broncos and Minnesota Vikings, but scored rushing and receiving touchdowns in the Lions’ NFC championship game loss to the San Francisco 49ers, and curtailed the drop problems that hampered him early in the year.
“I was so proud of that man cause he was doing stuff that a lot of people didn’t see,” Lions receiver Kalif Raymond said after the season. “Like everybody’s talking about work ethic but that dude was catching balls before practice, all kind of stuff. That dude was working. And that along with his mentality with his teammates and attacking the game, I was so proud to watch him. That’s why all his plays that he had over this postseason run, over the last half of the season, everything he was doing, it didn’t come as a surprise cause he put in so much work it was crazy.”
Campbell said the Lions’ “high hopes” for Williams are based in part on that
work.
“We see him continuing to grow as long as he gets back and puts the work in like we believe he will, cause he’s shown that,” Campbell said. “He’s only going to get better and better and better.”
The Lions will return their three leading receivers (St. Brown, LaPorta and running back Jahmyr Gibbs) and two leading rushers (Gibbs and David Montgomery) in 2024, but could lose Josh Reynolds and Donovan Peoples-Jones to unrestricted free agency.
For Williams, next season looms large as the Lions have a decision to make by
next May on the fifth-year option on his rookie contract.
“He progressed,” Campbell said. “And when he was able to come back off, when we got him, what Week 4 of the season, after he had the suspension, and all we asked of him was growth. Just get better. Just get a little bit better, and just become one of the guys, somebody that we can rely on in this offense. Just do your job, and that’s exactly what he did. And you could see by the end of the year, we really felt like he started to come into his own.”