Detroit Lions fans are excited as Jared Goff enters Ford Field before the season starts
Jared Goff enters Ford Field to warm up less than an hour before kickoff; Lions fans respond by chanting his name before the Rams’ opening game on September 8, 2024.
Jameson Williams held him tight and wouldn’t let go.
“I’ve never been given a game ball,” Williams said Sunday, holding a white ball in his right hand. “Not at ‘Bama, not anywhere. I’m not even going to lie, this may never leave my hands. I may fall asleep with it.”
If Williams gladly accepted the ball he was given for his contribution to the Detroit Lions’ 26-20 season-opening win over the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday at Ford Field, no one could blame him.
Williams caught five passes for 121 yards and scored a 52-yard touchdown in the breakthrough performance he and others had been waiting for most of his career.
LIONS LEVELS: David Montgomery and the defensive line receive good grades
Williams, a first-round pick in 2022, missed most of his rookie season recovering from a knee injury suffered in college and was suspended for the first four games of last season. He entered this year with 25 career catches for 395 yards and never had more than 69 yards in a game, despite Lions players and coaches insisting all offseason and throughout training camp that Williams was ready for a big year.
“Listen, I expected him to play pretty well, better, and he did,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said. “I mean, that was a big game where he was able to catch some of those points and come through. And the best part was he didn’t even play his best ball. There’s still so much to improve, but it also shows the work he’s put in, and he’s improving, and he’s a better player, and he wants it, and he keeps working at it.”
Williams gave the Lions’ slow-starting offense a boost on Sunday, catching a 36-yard pass on the team’s third offensive possession to give the Lions an early 10-3 lead.
On the same drive, he ran 13 yards on an end-around to set up Jahmyr Gibbs’ 1-yard touchdown run. Then he ran over Rams cornerback Tre’Davious White on a double move early in the third quarter for the long touchdown that gave the Lions a 17-3 lead.
Williams faked a hitch route on the play and raced past White, who tackled Williams in a futile attempt to commit pass interference and disrupt the play.
“We had a play, we knew who we were going to play it against and we had it going earlier in the week,” Williams said. “We worked on it a couple of times and called it out in the game. We said whoever gets the pass – it’s a mirror pass so both sides are in it, so whoever wins gets the ball.”
JEFF SEIDEL: Sure, there were problems, but the Detroit Lions showed special qualities in their victory over the Rams
Matthew Stafford, playing behind a shorthanded offensive line and losing his best receiver Puka Nacua to a knee injury early in the game, completed 34 of 49 passes for 317 yards as the Rams scored 17 straight points to take a 20-17 lead with 4:30 left.
The Lions then sent the game into overtime with a nine-play, 55-yard field goal drive, then won on the only possession of the overtime period when David Montgomery scored on a 1-yard run.
Montgomery ran 45 of his game-high 91 yards on five carries and said he felt unstoppable on the final drive. The Lions finished the game with 163 total yards against the team they beat in the wild-card round of the playoffs last year.
“We didn’t play our best game and we still won,” Lions quarterback Jared Goff said. “There’s a lot of things we need to fix, a lot of things we need to get better at. It feels a little bit like Week 1 last year, where it was, ‘Yeah, we made a few mistakes, but we were still able to win.’ And the fact that it was in overtime is special — and I think in a few months we’ll look back and be glad we did it.”
Williams said he hopes to look back on Sunday’s game as the beginning of something special for him, too.
The Rams spent most of the game double-covering Amon-Ra St. Brown (three catches, 13 yards), allowing Williams to play the primary role in Detroit’s passing game.
Williams was the only other wide receiver Goff targeted with a pass on Sunday, and he was responsible for three of the Lions’ four biggest offensive plays, gaining 52, 36 and 27 yards.
“This is only Game 1,” Williams said. “Like I said, I put a lot of work in. I expected a big game. Personally, I expect a big game, I think it’s just great for the world because it’s my first. But I plan on playing a lot more. I don’t plan on this being the best game of my career. I plan on this being just the beginning of being myself.”
Dave Birkett is the author of the new book “Detroit Lions: An Illustrated Timeline.” Pre-order now from Reedy Press.
Contact him at [email protected]Follow him on X and Instagram at @davebirkett.
