Detroit Lions coaches are raving about the progress Jameson Williams has made, and believe there’s an entirely new level he’ll hit in 2025.
It’s fair to call 2024 a breakout season for Detroit Lions first-round pick Jameson Williams. After a lengthy rehab from a torn ACL, some early struggles on the field, and a pair of setbacks via suspensions, Williams needed to prove his worth and did. Williams reached 1,001 yards during the regular season, and showed just how much of a big-play threat he can be. His 17.3 yards per catch ranked second in the NFL, only behind Colts receiver Alec Pierce.
But the word coming out of Detroit, as Williams heads into his fourth NFL season, is:
You ain’t seen nothing yet.
New Lions offensive coordinator John Morton was with Detroit in 2022, when Williams arrived as a first-round pick. He didn’t get the opportunity to see much of Williams in action, as most of the receiver’s time was spent rehabbing. So what was his first impression upon seeing Williams in 2025 for the first time?
“Unbelievable. Just unbelievable,” Morton said. “When I first got here, he came in to see me, we had a chat and I’m painting the picture, ‘This is what you need to do, this is how I see it,’ and he has been unbelievable. Unbelievable in the meetings, the attention to detail, I mean, I’m so excited to see him this year.”
Williams doesn’t just have a new coordinator; he has a new position coach. Scottie Montgomery spent last year coaching the Lions running backs, so he’s no stranger to Williams now that he’s coaching the wideouts. They’ve only been working a few months together, but Montgomery has already come away extremely impressed by Williams’ devotion to the craft.
“He was here when I got back here, so that’s a big deal to me,” Montgomery said. “When I came off of the couple-week break we had, Jamo was already here, right? In the offseason, I didn’t have to call him. Once I got the job, he knew exactly what it was. He just came up just to say hello to me because he knew what we need to get done.”
But it’s not just the desire to get better. Montgomery is seeing the growth happening in front of his eyes. During a recent offensive meeting, Williams stood with his deep understanding of the offense by the kind of questions he was asking.
“You talk about the communication level, and the questions, and the football IQ, and the acumen that he was asking questions about, is what you really wanted to see, and that’s what we got to do,” Montgomery said.
Morton didn’t hold anything back about Williams, a player he says has the kind of speed only matched by Reggie Bush.
“It’s going to be a breakout year for him. So I can’t wait, I just can’t wait, man,” Morton said.
But it’s May. The Lions coaches aren’t ignorant to the fact that plenty of work needs to be done before the season starts, and Montgomery—one of the most respected coaches on staff—knows that Williams isn’t anywhere close to a finished product. Last year he had flashes of elite moments on the field. This year, it’s about making his best the norm, play in and play out.
“Are we where we want to be? No, we’re not there, and I’m not saying that he’s showing us something that he’s not there, but we want to take baby steps,” Montgomery said. “He keeps developing the way he’s at, the way he’s doing right now; he’s going to get to a location that he really, really likes. Really, really satisfied with where he is right now, but we got a long way to go.”