Ever so slowly, Jameson Williams is coming. Eventually, he should hit the ground running.
While the Lions have yet to activate the 12th overall pick about nine months after he tore his ACL in the national championship, Dan Campbell said they still expect Williams to play this season.
"We felt like he's turned the corner over the last month," Campbell said Wednesday. "We feel like he’s really coming on. So I would say we’re pretty optimistic he’s going to play this year."
That said, the Lions won't let a rash of injuries on offense dictate Williams' timeline. He is too important to their long-term plans to prioritize the short term.
"The injuries are not going have any bearing on when he plays," Campbell said. "We’re not going to let that affect us. When he’s ready, we’ll get him up and ready to go, but we don’t want to press that just because we may have a number of injuries in the receiver room."
Whenever he does hit the field, Williams should be ready to rip. He's worked closely with wide receivers coach Antwaan Randle El during his recovery to gain a firm grasp of the Lions' offense. He's also a naturally heady player.
And speed is speed.
"The physical part I’m not worried about," Randle El said last month. "It’s the mental that you want to make sure a guy has, and he has it. He’s getting it down."
Speaking of explosive offensive players, the Lions expect D'Andre Swift to return to practice this week after missing the past two games with ankle and shoulder injuries. The star running back could play Sunday in Dallas.
It's less promising for receiver DJ Chark, who remains sidelined after re-injuring the ankle he had surgically repaired last season.
"We don’t want anything to rear its head again, but it's like anything else: it's something that’s bothering him and we just gotta get it to where he feels right and get him back to where he needs to be," said Campbell.
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