Jameson Williams Has Become More Than Just a Deep Threat

Last season was the breakout Jameson Williams badly needed. After two years of stops and starts, the former first-round pick found his footing in 2024, not just as a vertical threat but as a more complete weapon in Detroit’s offense. With few changes around him and a top-10 scoring projection once again, there’s reason to believe we’re just scratching the surface.

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Jameson Williams' Career

The beginnings of a career don’t get much wilder than that of Jameson Williams. After tearing his ACL on a long reception in a National Championship game, Williams was forced to miss the vast majority of his rookie season, with his only catch being a 41-yard touchdown. He only ran 37 routes through that 2022 season, but looked poised to make a splash as a sophomore on what looked to be an ascending offense.

Things took a turn for the worse when it was announced that Williams would be suspended for the first four games of the 2023 season due to violating the NFL’s gambling policy. When he returned to the field in Week 5, the Lions were more or less using him in a rotational role, with his first real flashes of NFL success coming between Weeks 15 and through the playoffs.

We can essentially ignore 2022 for reasons already stated, but I decided to leave it in the box just to compare how far he’s come since his tumultuous first crack at the professional ranks.

With the departure of Joshua Palmer and a relatively weak WR depth chart, we could read through the tea leaves that Williams would have a larger role in the offense in 2024, and that’s exactly what played out. In addition to his typical deep-field usage, his route tree really opened up in the short-to-intermediate, particularly when we look at his Reception Perception charting on some key routes. Namely, his slant usage more than doubled (9.4% -> 19.7%), while his “clear out” nine routes dropped from 16.2% to 13.8% and his “on the line of scrimmage” rate dropped from 85.6% to 66.5% as the team looked to move him around the formation.

His deployment as a true weaponized yards-after-catch option did wonders for his success rate in nearly every facet, and more importantly, his fantasy box scores improved by leaps and bounds. After cracking double-digit half-PPR points in two of his twelve games in 2023, he bested that mark on nine occasions last season, with the added bonus of five touchdowns that went 35+ yards (37, 52, 64, 70, and 82).

With minimal changes to the pass-catching corps this offseason, we should expect a similar slice of the offensive pie to head Williams’ way in 2025. What exactly that looks like remains to be seen, especially with several variables outside the receiver room still taking shape.

The Lions’ Offense in 2025

One of the biggest questions in all of Fantasyland is what the Lions' offense is going to look like with the departure of OC Ben Johnson. Our hopes fall on the shoulders of John Morton, who started his coaching career back in 1998 with the Raiders and, more recently, had been with the Broncos as their pass game coordinator for the last two seasons. That puts him at the helm for that questionable 2023 season, but on the flipside, he also pulled a surprising rookie performance out of Bo Nix.

What we’d really like changed in Detroit is…well, nothing. The Lions have finished fifth, fifth, and first as a scoring offense over the last three seasons, and it goes without saying that that translates quite nicely to fantasy points. If we can go by what Jared Goff has said in the early parts of training camp, our wish may just come through. Per the veteran QB; "[Morton] just sounds different in my ear, I guess…Some of the stuff's new, but I don't think it's any bit abnormal from every other team adding new stuff. That's kind of what we're doing, and it's been a good process."

There’s not much of an impetus for Morton to change much of anything, and it also helps that he was an offensive assistant back in 2022, the first year of this franchise-altering turnaround, and much of the personnel is exactly the same. Except maybe the offensive line, which could end up being an issue.

With the surprising retirement of center Frank Ragnow and the offseason shoulder surgery that has left LT Taylor Decker sidelined throughout the summer, things could be a little stickier than in recent history. That said, the Lions are still firmly in the top 10 of our offensive line rankings, but they’ve been at home in the “elite” tier for the last couple of years, so it is a downgrade.

Projecting the Lions’ Pass-Catchers in Fantasy

Amon-Ra St. Brown is this team’s locked-in No. 1 option, and no coaching staff changes or growth from his teammates are going to take that away from him. Among qualifying WRs over the past three seasons (~100), St. Brown has finished every one of them ranked in the top-10 in both targets per route run and target share, joining Davante Adams as the only other player with that achievement. We currently have ARSB ranked as fantasy’s WR7, projected for 105 receptions, the fourth-highest mark at the position.

This would leave scraps for “ancillary” pieces on many other offenses, but with the Lions sporting the sixth-highest implied team total across the 2025 season, we should still expect plenty of passing success behind their WR1.

The bigger question is whether or not Williams’ ascension continues to eat into Sam LaPorta’s production, and I think that’s incredibly likely. LaPorta was a fantastic real-life and fantasy piece as a rookie, particularly as a weapon in the play-action passing game, but in his sophomore season, those looks made up a far bigger chunk of his usage.

LaPorta earned 25 play-action targets in 2022, which made up 21.2% of his total workload. In 2023, his 29 play-action targets accounted for a whopping 37.1% of his year-long targets, correlating with his first-read looks dropping from a 19.9% rate to a 15.7% rate. If you assumed that Williams’ first-read rate went in the complete opposite direction, you’d be correct; from a lowly 11.3% to 23.0%.

The tight end is still a huge part of an explosive offense, so it’s not someone we should be avoiding in fantasy, but his odds of competing as the overall TE1 are directly tied to St. Brown or Williams missing time, which has rightfully pushed him closer to the middle rounds of drafts.

Jameson Williams’ increased role and propensity to break huge gains make him a very legit WR2/3 option, with the ability to hang 20+ fantasy points in any given week.

Bottom Line

• Jameson Williams is now the clear No. 2 option on an explosive Lions offense and offers week-winning upside due to the offensive infrastructure and his ability with the ball in his hands.
• There are some key moving pieces in Detroit, namely, a new OC and some changes along the offensive line, but they aren’t big enough question marks to significantly downgrade fantasy pieces.
• According to current Underdog ADP, Williams is coming off boards as the WR25 in the fifth round, sandwiched between DK Metcalf and George Pickens. The upside thirst is real on best ball formats, so he will likely be going a good bit later in typical redraft leagues. Regardless, he is a great target for 2025, and he pairs with Amon-Ra St. Brown as one of the only WR tandems who could legitimately both finish as top-24 options.