With Jameson Williams under a microscope in his first live training camp with the Lions, everyone seems to have an opinion on the 22-year-old receiver. He can't catch. (Yes he can!) He's out of sync with Jared Goff. (No he's not!) He won't live up to the hype. (He's already exceeding it!)
Williams' inconsistency has been real as he embarks on year two in Detroit, as you might expect for a player who's hardly practiced, let alone played in the NFL. He caught one pass last season and spent most of the year recovering from a torn ACL. And as he prepares to serve a six-game ban for gambling, Williams' every move is being scrutinized in camp -- the good (a 55-yard TD on Wednesday), the bad (an ongoing issue with drops) and the not-so-ugly (an ordinary practice spat on Monday).
Know who's not overreacting one way or the other? The man who traded up last year to draft Williams 12th overall.
"I think sometimes it’s a little more magnified when a wide receiver with that kind of talent, if he drops a ball, everybody sees it," Lions GM Brad Holmes said Thursday on 97.1 The Ticket. "But there’s other players that have some similar struggles, some mistakes here and there that aren’t as magnified."
An interior offensive lineman, said Holmes, can miss an assignment in a run drill and escape public criticism. But Williams often winds up on trial when he fails to catch a couple balls. It's a product of the position that he plays and being drafted where he was. Point is, nobody in Allen Park expected Williams to be perfectly polished at the start of what's essentially his first NFL season.
"He’s such a young player and he’s still developing and growing," said Holmes. "Player development is paramount with us inside this building, so we’ll keep making sure that he’s surrounded with the right structure to continue to develop with the coaching and resources we have in place. He’s got game-changing talent, but he’s just a young player and these guys go through ups (and downs). ... We still got a lot of hope for him."
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Holmes knows he turned some heads in this year's draft when he moved up to take Western Kentucky defensive tackle Brodric Martin in the third round. Brodric Who? Martin himself didn't expect to be drafted until Day 3. But with each practice in camp, especially each padded practice, Martin is starting to show why the Lions were so eager to get him.
And if Holmes is being honest, it's happening more quickly than expected.
"When we acquired Brodric, it wasn’t about what he was right now. ... He has so much upside that we just knew he’d have a bright future. But it’s clicking a little bit earlier than we thought," Holmes said.
Martin's size -- 6'5, 330 lbs -- speaks for itself. His power is easy to see. And while he's still learning to play with better pad level, Martin's speed and get-off have stood out to the point that he's earned some first-team reps in camp. Just the other day, fellow defensive tackle Isaiah Buggs said Martin "is going to be a hell of a player, man. ... A guy like that, we need him." And the Lions might thrust him into action sooner than planned.
"When you look at Brodric, man, he has the core traits of what you want in a football player," said Holmes. "Yes, he has size and strength and athleticism, but it's the fact that he plays hard, he has a relentless motor, has instincts, toughness, competitiveness. He has those core foundational traits you need in every football player. And he’s a smart kid that’s taking coaching and it’s starting to come along."
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