His latest comments on Jameson Williams weren’t revolutionary, but Lions general manager Brad Holmes is holding expectations high for the young wide receiver.
The six-game sample from Jameson Williams were a tease, as both of his touches went for at least 40 yards and he was eased into action coming off a torn ACL in his final college game.
A fully healthy offseason to work on all aspects of his game has expectations rising for Williams. Right after the season, Lions general manager Brad Holmes talked about that raised bar.
I don’t think anything he did this year is anywhere remotely close to where he’s going to go,” Holmes said of Williams. “We’ll determine what that role is and a lot of it is on him too. He’s going to have to put the work in this offseason, he’s going to have to be dedicated in his approach.
Brad Holmes reinforces expectations for Jameson Williams
Holmes spoke at the NFL Combine on Wednesday. Williams was among the topics he was asked about, with a notion having him is almost like having another first-round pick this year.
I guess that’s a good way to put it. It’s kind of like a brand new first-round pick. The goal when we originally drafted him, we didn’t know really how much we were going to get out of him, but it was good to have him get some kind of game experience to kind of feel the speed of the game
But, yeah, we’re just gonna continue to do everything that we need to do to make sure that he’s set up to succeed. Jameson also has to hold his part and make sure that he’s doing everything that he needs to do so. He’s got a serious passion for the game and, yeah, we expect big things from him. But obviously we’ve got to do both our parts to make sure he’s set up to succeed.”
The latter comment about Williams having to “hold his part” got some people going to the negative side, for some reason. But Holmes simply circled back toward his prior comments, while adding what the team has to do foster Williams’ success.
And while Williams has passion for the game and there’s plenty of faith he will put in the work, he still has to do it. He won’t be promised anything, he’ll have to earn it. There’s nothing Holmes said that will derail the breakout bandwagon for Williams heading into next season.