Jameson Williams followed up his disappointing opener against the New Orleans Saints with another quiet game against the Buffalo Bills, but Detroit Lions wide receivers coach Scottie Montgomery said he saw “a dramatic change” for the better in Williams’ Week 2 performance.
“We are in a production league, don’t get me wrong,” Montgomery said Wednesday, Sept. 23, in Allen Park. “And when you look at production, we need to produce, there needs to be something in there that says you have production. But before that happens, what we need to see is the trend [up] in all the things that we feel that are not production based, that are not on the stat sheet, so we’ve seen some of that with him.”
After dropping three passes in a lackluster debut against
the Saints, Williams showed better effort on the back side of plays, was more exact with the depth of his routes and won those routes at a higher percentage against the Bills, Montgomery said.
Lions receivers are given a win-loss grade on their releases, at the top of their routes and at the catch point, and Williams received high marks in all three areas.
“When all of those things start to trend up, you start to play better,” Montgomery said.
Williams has just six catches for 78 yards and has yet to score a touchdown this season, and the Lions have gotten little production from their receiving corps outside of Amon-Ra St. Brown through two games.
St. Brown leads the NFL with 19 catches for 209 yards and four touchdowns.
No. 3 receiver Isaac TeSlaa has two catches for 26 yards, and backups Tay Martin and Tom Kennedy have not played an offensive snap.
Tight end Sam LaPorta (11 catches, 100 yards) and running back Jahmyr Gibbs (11 catches, 91 yards) are second and third on the team in receiving.
“There’s been a lot of unselfishness at the receiver position right now,” Lions quarterback Jared Goff said Wednesday. “Some of these guys that haven’t got the ball as much as we’d maybe like are doing a lot of good things.”
Montgomery said it’s “very important” the Lions get more production from Williams and TeSlaa going forward, but he cautioned not to judge either based solely on their statistics.
“I think there’s a difference in Jamo and there’s a difference in Tes,” Montgomery said. “Tes, his opportunities are going to be limited just because of how we’re built as an offense.”
Despite his high win rate on routes, Williams had just two catches on four targets for 33 yards against the Bills. Montgomery said Williams’ target share was impacted by protection breakdowns and because he was a secondary option on some of the routes he won on, behind other receivers who also won their routes but were higher up in the progression.
TeSlaa has just six targets through two games but is “playing harder than damn near anybody that we have on our offensive side of the ball,” Montgomery said.
“He is mixing it up, he’s physical,” Montgomery said. “And that’s what you have to do when you’re in that role.”
While St. Brown, Williams, Gibbs and LaPorta are ahead of TeSlaa in the Lions’ passing-game pecking order, Montgomery said the Lions have opportunities to create big plays for TeSlaa as a tendency breaker because of the dirty work he does stretching the field and as a blocker.
Against the Bills, TeSlaa caught a 20-yard pass on a fourth-and-18 play in the fourth quarter.
TeSlaa said he’s not worried about his lack of targets through two weeks and trusts “things are going to open up and the catches and the yards will come for sure” this season.
“End of the day we have an incredible amount of weapons on our team,” TeSlaa said. “Jamo, LaPorta, Saint, Gibbs. It’s hard to feed all the mouths on the team so if my responsibility on a play is just run off and get someone else open, then I’ll happily do that. At the end of the day, the goal is to win. The catches will come and the yards will come, but at the end of the day, my goal is just to help the team in anyway I can cause I just want to win.”
Dave Birkett covers the Lions for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Bluesky, X and Instagram at @davebirkett.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Lions say Jameson Williams is trending up in their own grades
