The Lions unveiled Jameson Williams last week. They're ready to start unleashing him.
After Williams played just a handful of offensive snaps and saw one target in his NFL debut in Detroit's win over the Jaguars, Dan Campbell said Tuesday the Lions are prepared to "get him a little more involved" Sunday against the Vikings -- the rival with whom they traded to draft him 12th overall.
"We just wanted to get him out there (last week)," Campbell said. "We wanted him to go through a pregame warm-up, be on the sideline, go line up, go fight with somebody a little bit, go run a route, see if you can connect, go block somebody and just be in it. Be part of it, pads on, all of that.
"Moving forward, it’ll be, 'OK, we’ll get him a little more involved now,' so we’ll have some things for him. He’ll play more than he did last week, but there again, it's just, let’s slowly start to implement him into what we’re doing and see how he handles everything."
Williams is about 11 months removed from tearing his ACL in the national championship. The Lions planned to start him as a gunner on the punt team last week, until they never punted. Instead, Williams ran a couple routes, blocked on a few run plays and came out of the game unscathed.
The Lions do intend to use him as a gunner moving forward, something GM Brad Holmes hinted at back in September, and why not? Williams was the SEC Co-Special Teams Player of the Year last season at Alabama. He was also one of the most explosive wide receivers in the country, and he'll have a chance to prove it in the NFL in the weeks ahead.
"Maybe that’s all he does, maybe he’s just a gunner," Campbell joked. "Let me tell you something, have you ever seen his gunner reps? Check ‘em out. But we’ll see. I’ll tell you this, he’s a football player. He’s tough, he’s competitive and he’s not worried about breaking nails. He just wants to play.
"He’s obviously going to get more reps on offense and we’ll take him where he can go."
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