Lions place former Alabama receiver Jameson Williams on NFI list

Former Alabama star Jameson Williams is still recovering from the torn ACL he suffered in the national championship game against the Georgia Bulldogs, so it comes as no surprise the Detroit Lions decided to place him on the Non-Football Injury list on Sunday afternoon, instead of the physically unable to perform list, or the PUP list.

Check out the tweet from the Lions Twitter account.

#Lions announce the following transactions:

Placed Jerry Jacobs, Romeo Okwara and Josh Paschal on Active/PUP

Placed Jameson Williams and Natrez Patrick on Active/Non-Football Injury

— Detroit Lions (@Lions) July 24, 2022

The fact that the Lions placed him on the NFI list, means the issue is likely related to Williams’ ACL injury, since that injury was suffered in college. The NFI list is designated for injuries suffered away from football or a pre-existing injury prior to being drafted to the NFL. If Williams is not activated from the NFI list before the end of training camp and has to be placed on the regular-season NFI, he will be forced to miss at least four weeks of the 2022 NFL season.

Even though he still has to adjust to the speed of the NFL game, learn his new playbook, and recover from his ACL injury, Williams is a surefire bet to be one of the best playmakers in the National Football League for years to come once he gets adjusted.

Lions’ offensive coordinator Ben Johnson recently talked about how it’ll be an uphill battle to get their first-round draft pick up to speed for the 2022 season.

“That’s a real struggle for us is to get him back, to get him healthy, and then get him as many reps as possible with the quarterbacks so that we know exactly where he’s going to be, we can anticipate the throw,” said Johnson. “It may take a little bit of time.”

Jameson Williams college football career

For the first two seasons of his college football career, Williams didn’t find the field often enough with the Ohio State Buckeyes. During his Ohio State career, the star wide receiver only caught 15 passes for 267 yards and three touchdowns. However, his story was completely rewritten after joining the Crimson Tide.

Through 14 games with the Alabama Crimson Tide, Williams caught 75 passes for 1,507 yards — adding 15 touchdowns. The speedster went from an afterthought to a first-round selection (No. 12 overall selection).

In those 14 games, his 1,507 receiving yards ranked fifth in the country. His 15 touchdown catches ranked second in the country. Last but not least, here’s a stat that demonstrates his highly explosive nature: Williams had more touchdowns of 70 yards, 60 yards, 50 yards, 40 yards, 30 yards, and 20 yards, than any other receiver in the FBS.

The Detroit Lions begin their training camp on July 30th.

On3’s Stephen Samra and Sam Gillenwater also contributed to this article.