The Detroit Lions aren’t trying to be the Oklahoma City Thunder, but Jameson Williams’ new skill could change everything
The Lions are trying to add something to Jameson Williams’ game that could have a huge impact this season. Just don’t expect Detroit to go about it like the Oklahoma City Thunder
The Detroit Lions have no intentions of becoming the Oklahoma City Thunder. That sounds like a weird sentence, but Lions wide receiver coach and associate head coach Scottie Montgomery made it clear on Friday when discussing Jameson Williams and his work on body positioning this offseason. Montgomery explained that he’s been teaching Williams to lean into contact, draw more defensive pass interference penalties, and make catches through contact. The follow-up question about manufacturing those calls drew a pointed response.
“We’re not a flop team, man,” Montgomery said.
That’s where the Thunder comparison comes into play. When you watch Oklahoma City, specifically Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, you think flopping. You think of a team falling all over the place. The pump fake, jump into the defender, two shots at the line. Somebody reaches their hand out, and SGA is falling backwards like he just got punched in the face 12 times in a row. Shai is probably the league leader in flops. You think of other guys like Jalen Brunson, who does it a lot. You saw in the playoffs with the Pistons how James Harden threw himself to the ground after every shot. You see it in soccer all the time. If you watched the World Cup, you would have thought some of these guys had died on the pitch.
The Lions don’t want any part of that. But they do want something to change.
Detroit’s pass interference problem in 2025
The question, asked by Jeremy Reisman of Pride of Detroit, centered on Detroit’s lack of defensive pass interference calls in 2025. The Lions had just four DPI calls go their way all of last season. That number was among the fewest in the league. It took until December before they even got one. That’s an absurd stretch for any offense, let alone one with the kind of speed Williams brings to the field.
So the natural follow-up was whether the Lions are trying to manufacture those calls. Montgomery’s answer made it clear they aren’t looking to game the system.
What are the Lions actually doing?
There are guys in the NFL who absolutely try to draw flags. Aaron Rodgers was the king of it. Tom Brady did it too. These quarterbacks acted like they’d been murdered on the field when they’d barely been touched. One of the worst calls in Lions history was Rodgers pretending someone grabbed his facemask and twisted his head. The phantom facemask call. It didn’t happen.
The Lions aren’t going down that road. What they’re doing is smarter. Williams is working on body positioning to put himself in spots where defenders have to make contact, and if that contact crosses the line, the flag comes out naturally. That’s gamesmanship. That’s a smart way of going about it. Throwing yourself on the ground is the worst way to handle it, and it sounds like Detroit wants no part of that approach.
Jameson Williams as a contested catch threat
Williams as a contested catcher has improved drastically. It wasn’t something he couldn’t do before, but it wasn’t the first thing on his board. Anytime we saw Williams make a catch, it was usually because he had outrun someone or found himself wide open. Now you can see him attempting to make more contested catches, and the results have been noticeable at camp.
Adding that element to his game is huge at this point in his development. If Williams can win 50-50 balls, lean into defenders without flopping, and force officials to make calls based on legitimate contact, Detroit’s offense gains a dimension it simply didn’t have last season.
The other side of the coin
The Lions also stand to benefit from losing the player who was getting flagged for DPI the most on their own defense. Cornerback Terrion Arnold is no longer on the roster. The hope is that Detroit stops giving up backbreaking pass interference penalties on defense while simultaneously starting to earn a few more on offense.
The Lions don’t want to be the Oklahoma City Thunder. Maybe they want to be the New York Knicks, just a little bit. We’ll see what it looks like when the season arrives, but the early returns on Williams’ new contested catch ability suggest this could pay off in a real way.
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