Jameson Williams will remain on the Detroit Lions non-football injury list for at least a little while longer. The first-round wide receiver, who underwent surgery to repair a torn ACL in January, isn’t ready to take the field just yet. Based on what Lions head coach Dan Campbell said on Wednesday, don’t expect Williams anytime immediately either.
“We really feel like he’s turned the corner over the last month,” Campbell said of Williams. “We feel like he’s really coming on.”
Campbell continued with a statement that raised some eyebrows.
“I would say we’re pretty optimistic he’s going to play this year.”
Williams has posted some videos documenting his physical progress in his rehabilitation. He looks as fast as ever and has showed off some ability to decelerate and plant, a key step in the recovery process. While many fans, and no doubt Williams himself, are clamoring to get him in the lineup, Campbell’s reserved tone curbs the enthusiasm for any immediate return.
Campbell squashed any notion that the rash of injuries at the position will force the team to play Williams.
“The injuries are not going to have any bearing on when (Williams) plays,” Campbell said definitively. “We’re not going to let that affect us. When he’s ready, we’ll get him up and ready to go, but we don’t want to press that just because we have a number of injuries in the receiving corps.”
Prior to the bye in Week 5, the general consensus was that the earliest Williams would play would be the Thanksgiving day game against the Buffalo Bills in Week 12. That date is still more than a month away. Based on Campbell’s assertion on Wednesday, that might be too optimistic for a Williams debut in Detroit.
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