If it wasn’t already clear enough, it’s crystal now: the Detroit Lions are counting on Tyleik Williams to make a big leap in 2026.
Veteran defensive tackle DJ Reader agreed to a two-year, $12.5 million deal with the New York Giants Tuesday, officially ending his two-season tenure in Detroit.
It never really felt like Reader was going to be back with the Lions for 2026, after a 2025 season where his play declined a bit and the fact that the Lions drafted Williams in the first round before that year.
And Detroit was likely never going to match the money Reader got from New York, after letting similar-priced veterans like Alex Anzalone, Amik Robertson and Al-Quadin Muhammad walk in free agency.
So now, it’s officially Williams’ turn to take over as the man in the middle of the trenches for Detroit’s defense, especially after quality depth tackle Roy Lopez also left the building.
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Williams was selected 28th overall out of Ohio State in the 2025 draft. He was one of that draft’s most highly-touted space-eating run stuffers and the Lions seemed to view him as Reader’s eventual successor.
“Not only does he have the physical skillset — he’s got the power — he’s got the bend and the agility,” general manager Brad Holmes said in 2025 after drafting Williams. “He’s a very nimble athlete, but the thing about it is that he’s incredibly instinctive, too.”
Williams made 10 starts in 2025, logging 18 combined tackles, two tackles for loss, one sack, three quarterback hits and four passes defended. He started Detroit’s first six games of the year opposite Reader before being relegated to a rotational role after the return of star 3-technique Alim McNeill from a torn ACL.
It wasn’t the most productive year on the raw stat sheet, but 1-technique defensive tackles rarely, if ever, put up eye-popping numbers. Williams’ role, like Reader’s, is to eat up space on the interior to funnel the running game towards where the rest of Lions’ defense can really pounce on it.
Williams showed a lot of promise in that regard and improved over the course of the season. He recorded a tackle for loss and knocked down a pass in the Lions’ final Week 18 win over the Chicago Bears and was generally more productive over the second half of 2025.
Williams said in January his biggest offseason goal is to improve as a pass rusher.
“Just more pressure on the quarterback," he said. "I won some rushes, but I'm not winning them at the rate I want to win them at."
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Pro Football Focus credited Williams with 19 pressures in 2026. Though Detroit didn’t necessarily draft him to be a pass rusher, the best defenses in the NFL do tend to have a steady stream of pressure coming from the interior.
The Lions never really had that in 2025 with McNeill still shaking off the rust of an ACL tear. But with McNeill theoretically back to his usual, disruptive self in 2026, his return to form could open up more opportunities for Williams to show what he can do on passing downs.
Reader and McNeill were one of the NFL’s best defensive tackle duos in the NFL in 2024 before McNeill went down. If McNeill gets back to full strength and Williams can emerge as a younger, more athletic version of Reader with more pass-rush juice, then Detroit's defense could really rebound.
But if he doesn’t make that sort of leap, and remains simply a good-but-not-great run stopper who’s not going to be a factor on passing downs, it severely limits the upside of Detroit’s front four. There's a lot riding on how much Williams can progress from his first year in the NFL to his second.
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