The Detroit Lions are going to look at lot different for the 2025 season, both when it comes to the coaching staff and players, so it’s critical to make sure some of the team’s biggest pieces of the puzzle are enact.
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When it comes to the offense, the Lions will have some key guys back, including Jared Goff, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Jahmyr Gibbs and Sam LaPorta. But, there’s another player who has helped the Lions’ offense really soar the past few seasons, and many fans are hoping he stays a Lion for years to come.
Brad Holmes Implies He’ll Lock in Deal With Lions Favorite
Jameson Williams is super fun to watch on the field, and he has the stats to love, too. In 2024, Williams had an impressive 58 catches for 1,001 yards and seven touchdowns. The former Alabama player was the 12th overall pick in the 2022 NFL Draft, and he’s really proven himself on the field, especially this past season.
During the NFL Owners Meetings, Detroit Lions general manager Brad Holmes opened up about Williams and exercising the player’s fifth-year option. During the talk with with media, Holmes implied that the Lions would do just that and pick up his fifth-year option before the May headline. Doing so could cost the Lions $15.4 million in the last year of Williams’s rookie deal in 2026, but Holmes sounded all about it.
“Look, it’s heading that way that we are most likely going to be doing that,” Holmes said according to ESPN’s Eric Woodyard. “He was a tremendous player for us last year. He’s still scratching the surface. I do think he’s got more in him as well, so I just think it makes sense for us to do what we can to keep him around.”
Other Lions who are likely going to get major extensions are Aidan Hutchinson and Kerby Joseph, so that makes three deals that Holmes will have to work out, but it should be worth it.
Why the Lions Let Za’Darius Smith Go
At the event, Holmes also talked about Za’Darius Smith‘s release and basically said that he let the star player walk because of money. It’s an honest answer, but it’s also not the kind of thing many Lions fans don’t want to hear. If you want the best, you have to pay for the best.
“We couldn’t afford it. That’s the bottom line,” he said according to Nolan Bianchi of the Detroit News. “That was my communication with him and he understood that.”
He continued, “But we just weren’t in a position to really keep him at his salary, because look, he played some good snaps for us and he made plays for us when we acquired him, so we would have loved to be able to keep him, but we just weren’t able to. But we’ve been keeping in touch with his agent, and he understands that process, so we’ll just see how it goes.”
“Holmes is not to going to do anything but offer the unvarnished truth, which is to be appreciated,” notes Brad Berreman of SideLion Report in a March 31 feature. “In this case though, he might have been better off saying Smith asked for his release rather than “we couldn’t afford it” (i.e. him).”
