Early in Wednesday's joint practice against the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Detroit Lions lost two wide receivers to injury. It initially seemed Amon-Ra St. Brown was not dealing with a significant ankle injury, but Jameson Williams was a different story with his hamstring issue.
Head coach Dan Campbell spoke to reporters on Thursday before the second joint practice against the Jaguars. The news on St. Brown was good overall, as expected, but the news on Williams was not positive.
Dan Campbell said he expects to get Amon-Ra St. Brown back sometime next week. St. Brown hurt an ankle yesterday in practice. He also said Jameson Williams could miss the rest of the preseason after he injured a hamstring yesterday in practice.
— Tim Twentyman (@ttwentyman) August 17, 2023
"I think it's a good chance it could go through the preseason," Campbell said of Williams' injury. "He misses the reps. It's a chance to get full speed full tilt reps. The timing in the pass game. Lining up. All of it. The moving vs. press through the zones. It's just time on task.Dan Campbell
"There will be a setback with it. Listen, you take it as it comes. I'm not going to sweat it. As long as he's willing to continue to grind on the playbook and get it right, we'll take it as it goes.""
During the 7-on-7 period of Wednesday's practice, pulled up while running a deep route, grabbing his right hamstring area. He missed the first few days of padded training camp practice with a left hamstring issue, so it's worth noting this latest injury is not to the same hamsting.
Jameson Williams suffers another early-career setback
Williams was going to see plenty of action in Saturday's preseason game against the Jaguars, and presumably in the preseason finale against the Carolina Panthers too. Now that's out the window, as he misses practice and game reps leading into his six-game suspension to start the season.
Due to his suspension and having to be away from the facility for the first three weeks, by NFL rule Williams can't receive treatment from the team for his injury once the regular season starts. But, per Kyle Meinke of MLive, Campbell said recourse is being looked into there. So there seems to be concern the injury would sideline Williams into the season, if he were able to play. The season opener is three weeks from Thursday, so the idea Williams would still need treatment for his injury into the season is not necessarily notable.
Williams will miss at least 17 of his first 23 NFL games, with or without a hamstring issue that may be pretty bad and cost him development reps now. How much the Lions will be willing to let him work through things while they're trying to win games in the middle of the season now ramps up as a big question.