Before the Lions invested a first-round pick in Tyleik Williams, Dan Campbell and Brad Holmes asked him in a sit-down meeting during his visit to the Lions' facility last spring, "Is there ever going to be an issue with your weight?" Williams' weight had fluctuated at Ohio State, at one point ballooning up to 360 pounds.
Williams assured them those issues wouldn't persist.
"Really proud of him," Campbell said Thursday. "He's a man of his word."
The Lions took a draft day gamble pic.twitter.com/dIQmb7bBCS
— 97.1 The Ticket: (@971theticketxyt) July 31, 2026
A few months ago, Williams went on a cruise. The food was good -- "too good," he said with a laugh during an interview Friday on Fox 2 Detroit. He could feel himself gaining weight. When he got home, "I stepped on the scale and it was a number I hadn’t seen in a very long time," he said.
Williams went on to take a bunch of photos of himself. He saw how his stomach looked in the pictures from the side and realized that he was "somewhere I didn't want to be."
"It was pretty bad," he said.
After playing last season at around 335 pounds, Williams was well north of that, somewhere in the range of 370. He put those photos in an album on his phone called The Start and said, "I knew I had to make a change if I wanted to have an impact this year. I had to lose that weight."
Williams reached out to Campbell and the Lions and filled them in. Then he reported to the facility two weeks before the spring program started and got to work with the team's nutrition-performance experts Scott Nealon and Brittany West. Williams cut out sandwiches and breads. He did a lot of walking. The weight fell off pretty easily, he said.
The Lions told Williams to be at 325 by training camp. He met the goal when he arrived this week -- reporting on Instagram that he had dropped 50 pounds -- and then "crushed the conditioning test," said Campbell. "Like I told him, and told the team, now he's put some money in the bank of trust. It’s awesome. And respect. Really fired up, man. That’s a credit to him."
We're three days into camp. The pads have yet to come on. There's only so much to see in the trenches. But Williams looks quicker, like when he burst into the backfield with a spin move during team drills Wednesday and followed suit Thursday with a number of strong rushes up the middle. He has moved Jared Goff off his spot multiple times.
More importantly, Williams feels quicker, without sacrificing any strength.
"100 percent, moving way faster, more fluid," he said. "I have natural athletic ability and now it’s, like, times 10 with the weight off of me."
Williams had a decent rookie season. He was tasked with a lot, filling in for the injured Alim McNeill out of the gate. He popped early in the year, dipped in the middle and ultimately finished strong. He gave himself "a C, C+" when the season came to an end. He said he wanted to make more of an impact in year two as a pass-rusher.
In 17 games, Williams had 19 QB pressures, per PFF, four batted-down passes and one sack. He said that improving his "get-off, keying the ball more and working my hand-eye coordination" would help him generate more pressure moving forward. Again, it's July. The Lions are still in pajamas. But already, William's get-off looks better.
That's where he's feeling his newfound quickness the most.
"It’s not even comparable to last year," he said. "I just gotta show it in camp. I’ve had a couple days, bunch more pass rush stuff going on. It’s helped me tremendously, because I think I got the run stuff down, for sure."
The Lions are seeking more of an interior pass rush this season. (Recent Super Bowl winners would suggest that's a good idea.) There's a major opportunity in the middle of the defensive line with the departures of both DJ Reader and Roy Lopez. And there appears to be an emphasis on speed over mass.
Williams, who intends to stay at 325 pounds, could see an expanded role after playing almost all of his snaps last season on first and second down. Only about 10 percent of them came on third or fourth down, and even those were typically in short-yardage (i.e. likely run) situations.
"Our eyes are open," said Campbell. "We're willing to give him an opportunity if there's a little bit more that shows, maybe he's out there a little bit more on third down. Certainly we're open to that. We like Tyleik. We absolutely know there's a role for him and there's something that he can do for us that we feel like really helps us. But can it be even more than that? Yeah, our eyes are open."
It means a lot to Williams to have Campbell's faith: "It’s a huge confidence booster. I’ll tell you what, man, that’s the head man, he could have anybody in my position but he chose me. To hear that from him, it makes me feel good."
Williams is faster and "playing more freely," he said. Nothing comes free in the NFL, certainly not the trust of the coaching staff. Williams is making his deposits. The withdraws this season could pay major dividends for Detroit.
