The most dominant news story surrounding the Detroit Lions this offseason has been the departure of Offensive Coordinator Ben Johnson, who left to become the Head Coach of the Chicago Bears. The Lions have tapped coaching journeyman John Morton to replace one of the most creative and dynamic play callers in the NFL, and everyone in the fantasy football world is wondering what this will mean for all the weapons in the Detroit offense.
Buried by the concerns of the 2025 outlook of the Lions’ dynamic offense is the story of the ascension of Jameson Williams as one of the most explosive WRs in the league. Entering his fourth season in the NFL, Williams has shown flashes of being a WR1 – and we’re here today to show you how he makes good on that potential in fantasy for 2025.
Editor’s Note: This profile is part of our annual Path to a Fantasy WR1 Season series. For our methodology and an outline of the process, make sure you read the 2025 Path to WR1 Series Primer. Find out the full statistical projections for the Footballers Consensus WR1s in the Ultimate Draft Kit.
2024 Season Recap
Expectations were mixed for Jameson Williams in 2024. He lost most of his Rookie season recovering from an ACL tear, and an embarrassing gambling suspension cost him four games in his second season. It was fair to wonder if we would ever see the talent and consistency that led Williams to be picked 12th in the 2022 draft. But Jameson finally showed in Year 3 some of the promise we’d all hoped for. He finished the season as WR19 with the following stat line:
| RECEIVING | RUSHING | |||||||||||||
| Player | PTS | PTS/G | GP | TGT | REC | CTCH% | YDS | Y/C | TD | ATT | YDS | Y/A | TD | FUM |
| Jameson Williams | 183.2 | 12.2 | 15 | 91 | 58 | 64% | 1001 | 17.3 | 7 | 11 | 61 | 5.5 | 1 | 0 |
Jameson really came on in the second half of the season, after serving another two-game suspension. From Weeks 10-18 (he was suspended weeks 8 and 9), Jameson was, coincidentally, WR12. That’s right, he was nestled in at the tail-end of WR1 territory.
| RECEIVING | RUSHING | |||||||||||||
| Player | PTS | PTS/G | GP | TGT | REC | CTCH% | YDS | Y/C | TD | ATT | YDS | Y/A | TD | FUM |
| Jameson Williams | 117.4 | 13 | 9 | 61 | 41 | 67% | 640 | 15.6 | 4 | 7 | 29 | 4.1 | 1 | 0 |
The Path for 2025
After a bumpy start to his career, 2025 may feel more like his second full year as a pro. Much has been made of the departure of OC Ben Johnson, and the offense could look a bit different in 2025 for sure. But John Morton has guided other prolific passing games (including Bo Nix’s breakout 2024 campaign with the Denver Broncos) and has worked under some of the most brilliant offensive minds in the game (Sean Peyton twice, Lane Kiffin, and Jon Gruden, to name a few). In fact, if you ask Lions TE Sam Laporta, Morton himself is one of those brilliant minds!
Oh, and John Morton happens to be calling his shot with Jamo this year as well:
#Lions OC John Morton on first impressions of Jameson Williams…
“Unbelivable. In the meetings, attention to detail, I’m so excited to see him this year. It’s gonna be a breakout year, so I can’t wait.”
— Nolan Bianchi (@nolanbianchi) May 13, 2025
Although the Lions retain all major skill position players from their high-powered 2024 offense, their offensive line is projected to take a significant step backward in 2025, following the retirement of Center Frank Ragnow and the loss of Guard Kevin Zeitler to free agency. After finishing as a top-5 rated unit in 2024, PFF has this line projected as merely the 13th best for 2025. This could lead to a less efficient run game and may necessitate more passing as a result.
Target Share
Jameson finished the 2024 season with an 18.9% target share, second behind only Amon-Ra St. Brown. But more than 15% of Detroit’s targets ended up intended for Tim “Fireball Jones” Patrick and Kalif Raymond. The Lions have far too many superior options to keep feeding guys like this at a 15% clip. As Jameson continues to mature and build chemistry with Jared Goff, I expect his target share to increase, and that alone may be enough to boost him into WR1 territory. To be conservative, let’s merely keep his target share where it was during that stretch of games from weeks 10-18: 19.7%. ESPN’s Mike Clay has Jared Goff projected at 559 pass attempts (up from 539 in 2024), so we will give Jameson 110 targets. That’s not incredibly inspiring, but wait until you see what he does with those targets!
aDOT and Yards
Per PlayerProfiler, Jameson’s aDOT has actually dropped each of his first three seasons, down from 16.6 his rookie year (on only nine targets) to 15.6 on 41 targets in 2023 to 11.4 on 91 targets in 2024. This indicates that the Lions are using him as more than just a deep threat, which is great for target share and YAC, but his aDOT has suffered. As Coach Morton has expressed a desire to roughly keep things the same in the offense in 2025, I think Williams can maintain a similar aDOT.
Efficiency is the name of the game for Williams, as he ranked fifth in Receiving Yards per Target (11.0 yards), sixth in Yards per Catch (17.3 yards), and seventh in Fantasy Points per Target (2.33 points). His catch percentage in 2024 was a career-best 64%, but I expect it to increase slightly this year, with another offseason of reps under his belt. Goff is projected to complete 69% of his passes this season, so if we give Williams that same catch rate, he will accumulate 76 receptions. If he maintains his high YPC of 17.3, that will net him 1,315 receiving yards in 2025.
If you think 17.3 YPC is tough to replicate, I hear you. But nearly half that number came in the form of YAC! Williams finished 18th in the entire NFL and second only among WRs (only Marvin Mims was better) in YAC in 2024, with an average of 8.6 yards after each reception. With an aDot of 11.4 yards, Williams is a big play waiting to happen.
TDs
Jameson notched only one TD in the Red Zone in 2024, which seems crazy given his size and explosiveness. Even so, his seven total TDs over 58 receptions gave him a TD rate of 12%, which is very reasonable to repeat. He’s on par with players like DeVonta Smith, Jayden Reed, Pat Freiermuth, Brian Thomas, Marvin Harrison Jr, and even Sam LaPorta. While it’s fair to assume Jameson may see more Red Zone success this year, he may also see fewer big-play TDs. Let’s say these cancel each other out. Keeping his TD rate at 12% would mean 9 TDs on 76 receptions in 2025.
Conclusion
There are a lot of mouths to feed in Detroit, with a two-headed rushing attack, a budding superstar TE, and one of the game’s truly elite WRs across the field from Jameson Williams. But it’s also hard to deny that there’s a lot of room for growth for this prospect.
With a stat line of 76 receptions, 1,315 yards, and nine TDs, Jameson would be looking at 223.5 half-PPR fantasy points from receiving production in 2025. That alone would have been good enough for WR7 last year. His rushing upside is a cherry on top.
The story here is really about whether Williams can play a full 17 games this season and if he can continue to develop as a reliable and dynamic playmaker within the new Lions’ offensive scheme. With another full offseason and (hopefully) no suspensions or injuries to derail his season, I believe Jameson could join Amon-Ra St. Brown to form a tandem of WR1s in Detroit.
