The Jameson Williams hype has turned out well through two weeks of the season. Can he keep this up all year?
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I really think he's legit, you know, when we talked about him extensively in the off season, my take was, you know, for all of the kind of some of the negative indicators in his profile, some of the positive indicators in his profile. I basically said, like, I don't have a strong take about how this one is going to go. The one thing I felt though, was that he would not crack the top five, or he would be the fifth option, you know, in the offense, where they have two good backs. They have another back and Jameer Gibbs that they want to throw the ball to, you know, and he actually has the exact same target share, first free target share, this year's last year. So that role has remained consistent. And then they have sample port and they have on our Saint Brown. So that left Jmo is the fifth option in the offense, when you account for the running backs and the run game and the whole thing. That's the thing that I'm, I'm like, I'm taking the L on that take because I think he is at this point clearly been ahead of Sam Laporta. And, you know, same. Yeah, obviously. Hey, did you draft breaking news? Did you draft Sam Laporta on your fantasy team? You definitely hate James and Williams. Totally. You for sure hate James and Williams. I mean, when you look right now at their first read targets and from fantasy points data in 2023, I'm on our Saint Brown, 34.9% Sam Laporta, 19.9%. James and Williams and Josh Reynolds were both 11.5%. Obviously Williams didn't play the full season. Jameer Gibbs at 10.3%. Like I mentioned, this year, it's James and Williams team high, 34.5%. I'm on our Saint Brown, 31%. Jameer Gibbs, like I said, identical 10.3%. Sam Laporta, 8.6. Wow. Cent. That is a big, big drop off. It's more than 50% lost in terms of first read targets. Now, I say that this has happened. I do wonder if it is going to continue to happen, James, because I don't think the Lions offense has been great through two weeks. I think they've actually been a little agency-turvy, a little bit inconsistent. I wonder if Sam Laporta being minimized has actually not been good for this offense. Certainly in week one, Saint Brown was not, what do you have? 19 targets last week. That's going to obviously boost the whole season total, but obviously in week one, he was not a big factor. I wonder if Ben Johnson and Jared Goff go back to the film and they say, "Hey, look at all these layups like Sam Laporta here. Maybe we need to get back to those and not be so Jameo obsessed." Although clearly, he's a good player and will continue to be involved in the offense than he should be. That was the point that I wanted to bring up was the fact that this offense is actually worse for wear because they have fed Jameson Williams 20 targets through two games. And despite the fact that he's been extremely productive from a counting stats standpoint, his 50% catch rate is very indicative of why some of these drives are stalling. I think to me, when Detroit is clicking and when Detroit is playing, good football, it is not because they're making splash plays. As a matter of fact, that's never, I don't want to say never, but the splash plays are different is what I should say. In terms of, okay, it's Amman Raw giving you 15 yards on the catch and then maybe 10 yards on the after catch or Sam Laporta giving you seven or eight yards on the initial catch and then picking up an extra 10 with his legs. These are the kind of splash plays that I think Dan Campbell and Ben Johnson and the Detroit Lions, when they are running hot and they're running good, that's the kind of drives that they want, not these deep overs in Jameson Williams connecting on a 40 yard bomb, right? First of all, that's not Jared golf's game. We know that. And I just don't think, I think there's been a little bit of a disconnect through two games where, you know, again, it's maybe you see this guy streaking open super deep down the field, but I just wonder, because again, that 50% catch rate, I just wonder if this team is now worse for wear because of it, because maybe they are sitting back there looking for deeper shots when they really shouldn't be. Well, I think a couple of things can be true at once, which I do, you know, this is a team in Detroit that it's similar. We give teams like San Francisco a pass at this point in the year because, okay, what really matters for them is December is January. And obviously, hopefully for them in February. I think we got to talk about the lines in the same way. I think they were my pick to win the Super Bowl this year. I think they're a Super Bowl team contender for sure. You know, and I think a lot of what they're doing right now is a continuation to build on what they did in the off season, which was hype Jameson Williams to the moon and get this guy engaged with the program. Again, total guesswork. But it's what we talk about. I like that though. I like that though. I like that though. I come back to the week one game against the Sunday football against the Rams and the post game interview with James Williams really stuck out to me where, I mean, he is like, he's bopping up and down. He's hyped up. He's really am he's like kind of dancing around. He talked about this. He said to the the sideline reporter, you know, the he talked about the faith that Dan Campbell and Jared Goff showed in him and how much that meant to him and how much that, you know, kind of assuming here got him to buy in. This is a guy that has been a little aloof. The gambling suspension hasn't been really locked in because of injuries and all these other things at times. And then they started feeding him at the end of last year. They hype him up all off season. And so what do you do? You come out in week one and week two and you're like, dude, yeah, this isn't, this isn't BS. This isn't nonsense. We're feeding you the ball. Like you're a part of this thing. You're going to be a big part of our offense. And so I think that's been a concerted effort. And again, this is September. This is not the, these are not the most important games for the Detroit lines. Like, but you shouldn't have lost that game against Tampa Bay. You don't want to be messing around. You're losing now at this point, right? Right. Right. Let's be clear. Like this isn't, I'm not saying this is a perfect strategy. You got to win the football games, but you know, I think that's part of it. I think they're, they're kind of keeping him engaged. You're kind of keeping him locked in. So maybe as the season goes on, we cut, you know, Jared Goff, 7.5 average depth of target this year. He was at 7.0 last year. Maybe we bring that back a little bit. I do think when you look at dropback success rate, James, the lions are 22nd. The two teams that they're sandwiched between are the Jaguars and the Colts. We just talked about the Colts and the very boom bus nature of their past game. And Trevor Lawrence leads all quarterbacks in deep throw percentage. And it's nothing but like less chucked to Gabe Davis and Brian, those guys are down there somewhere. You know, that's their past game right now. That's not the lions. That's not the lions. So I wonder if by the end of the season, they get back to what they're, they're kind of bread and butter. It is, as we're saying here, plug in a Hyundai EV and the extraordinary happens. It's not just the ultra fast charging capability in long range in the Ionic 5 and Ionic 6 or the Adventure Seeking Spirit of the Kona Electric or the groundbreaking 601 horsepower Ionic 5N. 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