When your talking LBs making it don’t forget Agude, Mitchell
he was on PS almost whole last season. He has good size an likely is the replacement for the LB that left. He will have to be beat out an its possible but he has a head start.
So many forget this guy he was last cut last year from Fins an Lions claimed him . 6-4 245
Most don’t get guaranteed money and $225K though. Including Powell.
Now we have to add Loren Strickland ST ace and safety depth. Might be a challenger for Steel Chambers.
Good point on who he practiced against at IL which included Kirby Joseph, so Lions may have gotten some info from Joseph on Williams; his character, practice habits and more.
From the article:
His agility and quickness show up in his film. He laughs how his 40 time had amateur scouts labeling him as a possession receiver. That doesn’t come close to meshing with his playing style at Illinois, where he racked up 553 yards after the catch last season, the most in the conference.
“I’ve never been a possession receiver in my life,” Williams said. “I’ve been catching bubbles and screens and getting yards after the catch from the start.”
That start, amusingly, was just three years ago after playing quarterback his first two seasons at Illinois. To help with the switch, his position coach introduced him to a daily, 400-catch program on the JUGS machine, focusing on different angles as much as volume. That’s still Williams’ offseason routine, while he catches closer to 200 balls, split before and after practice, in-season.
But what really flattened his learning curve was being forced to sink or swim against the school’s tremendous slate of defensive back talent, including recent early-round draft picks Devon Witherspoon, Quan Martin and current Lions safety Kerby Joseph.
“When I first moved to receiver, that’s when it was really starting to click for all of them,” Williams said. “So I’m moving to receiver, these guys have three years under their belts and I’m going against them every day. It only made me better. I always tell people that practice was hard and the games were so easy.”
This morning, I watched a rather lengthy highlight film on him and came away thinking he’s “just a guy.” Good hands and body control to adjust to difficult catches, but it was a highlight video and I didn’t see a single game breaking play–just a bunch of solid plays.
Thats kinda the problem is we have 4 great WRs.
St Brown, Jamo, Raymond, DPJ.
Then a bunch of “just a guy”
Green, I Willams, Kennedy, Alexander, Davis, Calhoun, Smith, Fountain,
Just a bunch of guys.
Raymond and DPJ are serviceable NFL receivers, but calling them great is a stretch. Leaf has never been more than a #4 and DPJ has 1 year of production (and even that was only 830 yards, which is good not great).
Even calling Jamo great at this point is a stretch. We can hope - and predict (as I do) - that he’ll be great, but right now he’s not.
To me we have one great receiver right now, ARSB.
Im looking at it more so like from a ranking stand point.
Then you have about 8 WRs that are all good WR6/7. I wouldn’t consider any of the rest to be a good WR5.
See I think Justin Jefferson would make a great WR3 and Ja’Marr Chase a great WR4. Great is great. Just because a guy isn’t good enough to be a 1, 2, or 3, but is probably better than a lot of #4’s out there doesn’t make him great. It makes him about the 100-110th best WR in the NFL, which isn’t great.
Yea but those guys are 1s and 2s. Not 3/4s. Is my whole point.
For instance.
Your #1 WR ideally would be ranked in the top 20 of WRs in the nfl.
Your #2 wr should be top 40
#3, if your lucky top 70.
#4 is likely outside of the top 100. Unless your a stacked team.
But to me that doesn’t make them great. It makes them serviceable. Maybe you could say “great for a #3,” but your original post implied that we had 4 great WRs, and I don’t agree at all.
I think it’s funny when people on this board and the talking Heads online and in the media talk about our receiving group and leave out LaPorta… he had 86 catches last year for f**** sake.
So you are using great specifically to each class of WR; 1, 2, 3.
You are also, imo, putting your projected belief into your descriptions, you admit that the Jamo “great” could be a stretch.
St Brown is great
Jamo, is potential still hasn’t put together a full season of consistency.
DPJ, has shown flashes with a ton of different QB’s, great WR3? unknown at this point.
Little bit of drinking the koolaid.
Jamo definitely projecting. 100%
But DPJ. On a per target basis hes almost as good as Josh Reynolds was and a good amount better than DJ Chark.
Give DPJ and Williams a full offseason with Goff and they will perform just fine for a WR2/3
Define “great”. St. Brown is great, Jamo is a guy with 25 career receptions, DPJ was barely used in the system last season and Raymond is a 4. There is potential with Jamo and DPJ but there is absolutely room for more receivers in that receiver room, it’s the weak spot of the team currently outside of EDGE perhaps, lots of unknowns there.
…if you are a stat junky that wants to look at only numbers.
but if you look with your eyes, and you watched the end of last season…and you still believe that, you are out of your MF’n mind (just my opinion, of course).
Jamo is a massive weapon that needs to be accounted for by the opposition. He’s going to crush the NFCN next year.
My point is that Jamo is unproven, I never questioned his potential but he’s mostly potential at this point in his career. He’s not “great” until he proves it.
It’s not a matter of what my eyes see. Jamo hasn’t produced like a #2 WR yet which is a fact, he’s been mostly a decoy/gadget player thus far with him finally getting some more regular reps towards the end of the season. The flashes are there but they’ve just been flashes.
It’s just my opinion. I’m not one to anoint somebody until they’ve proven it. As a result, I think the WR has some question marks going into the season. The Lions have a stacked roster but there’s a few weak spots just like every team has and I think receiver is a bit of a weak spot.
Simply put, Jamo has to “prove it” this season, i.e. that he was worth the 12th overall pick.
Morice Norris He is a DB has played well at Inside an outside CB also played Safety. He is very good over all athlete an Lions saw him at his pro day an took him to supper. He fits what they are looking for ability to paly more than one spot an big enough for ST with new rules.
His versatility has to be what drew the Lions to him. Norris played outside corner, inside corner and safety in his two years at Fresno State 5-11 192