The Lions are dealing with several injuries in their wide receiving corps right now, but first-round pick Jameson Williams isn’t yet a candidate to help them fill out the group.
Williams is on the non-football injury list as he continues to recover from the torn ACL he suffered at Alabama. He will be eligible to begin practicing with the team next week, but a Week Six bye will likely factor into the decision about when to get him on the field.
In the meantime, Williams continues his rehab work and his mental preparation for life in the NFL. Wide receivers coach Antwaan Randle El said the latter process is going well ahead of Williams’ “first taste” of professional action.
“He’s picking it up. We go over it every day,” Randle El said, via Justin Rogers of the Detroit News. “It’s like in between sessions we go over the plays with him, he can spit it right back out to me. . . . You just work every week, you know, what’s in the game plan? Hey, here it is and him go through it and give it to you, so he understands it. He can talk to you about coverages, stuff like that, so he gets it. The physical part, I’m not worried about. It’s always the mental you want to make sure a guy has. He has it. He’s getting it down.”
The Lions rank second in the league in points and third in yards, so they’ve found better offensive footing than last year without having Williams’ speed as part of the attack. The hope is that incorporating that in the second half will make them an even tougher team to stop.
