Scottie Montgomery – Page 2

Lions look to get Jameson Williams more involved in the offense

ALLEN PARK — Jameson Williams should play a larger role in the Detroit Lions offense. In the win over Tampa Bay, before the bye week, the wide receiver was targeted twice but had no catches.

Actually he had one for 14 yards but it was negated by a questionable offensive pass interference penalty.

Scottie Montgomery, assistant head coach/wide receivers coach, called it a “great back shoulder catch” but then zipped his lips to prevent paying a penalty.

The way Williams handled it, showed his growing maturity level.

“I thought that was really going to frustrate him – it’s frustrating but it didn’t frustrate him to the point where he didn’t come back and have questions about what was going on and what we saw,’’ Montgomery said. “We have to get to the point where we’re not talking about potential we’re talking about more production and we’ll get there.’’

So far in seven games, Williams has 17 catches for 289 yards and two touchdowns.

The week before the Bucs’ win, in a loss at Kansas City, Williams had six catches on seven targets for 66 yards and a touchdown.

His most productive game yard-wise this season was two receptions for 108 yards and a touchdown in a win over Chicago.

“We want to win the game, we want to score points and I think that’s the primary for everybody. But of course, yeah, we’d love to get (Williams) involved more, get him to rock in a million different ways,’’ quarterback Jared Goff said. “And he’s explosive – I know defenses are worried about him at all times and we need to find ways to continue to keep him involved.”

During the bye week, the coaches were studying film on how to get the most out of each player.

“It’s just one of those situations – it’s one of the things I studied where (Williams) is in the progression, what happens when he is first, second, third in the progression,’’ Montgomery said.

“It’s kinda been all over the place. Either the progression started and he’s open behind the first progression or he’s the second progression and we don’t quite connect. Or we do everything right — the O-line everything is right and we don’t make the play down the field’’

Montgomery said it’s a combination of all those things. They’re working to get Williams more opportunities.

It’s a process and it doesn’t start during game week.

“It starts the moment that you walk into a room as a coach, you’ve got certain standards for guys, you also have to create a level of understanding that is selfless but you also have to have a bit of a selfish nature to you,’’ Montgomery said. “Because receiver is one of the only jobs where everybody else has to do their job almost perfectly for you to get the opportunity and because you’re the punctuation mark or you’re the period or the question mark or the exclamation mark — right there to finish the sentence you have to have a different level of confidence to be able to finish drives, to finish plays, and finish with the ball in the end zone. It’s something we started a long time ago.’’

UP NEXT: Vikings (3-4) at Lions (5-2), 1 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 2 at Ford Field.

Five things to watch as Lions face Chiefs in prime time action

The Lions are looking for their fifth straight win, while the Chiefs are coming off a 31-28 loss on Monday night to the Jaguars. Kansas City is off to a bumpy start this season but that hasn’t changed how Lions coach Dan Campbell sees them.

The Lions (4-1) and Chiefs (2-3) meet on Sunday Night Football in Kansas City.

“I mean it – to be able to come back year in and year out and stay hungry, stay competitive, do the right things, don’t get complacent, eliminate entitlement when you’ve been a champion over and over, I think that takes a special kind of group, a special kind of coaching staff, special kind of leadership, players, the whole thing,’’ Campbell said.

“They have that winner’s makeup, that champions makeup. But that’s right up our alley, we love this. This is – you want to look back on this in a few years and say that’s what we’ve become,’’ Campbell said.

He sees the same thing building in Detroit.

“Absolutely it’s building. And that’s what we preach here. Our players believe in it. You’ve got to stay hungry and every game is a new game and you’ve got to take it personal,’’ Campbell said. “You’ve got to take it personal.”

The Lions opened the 2023 season with a 21-20 win at Kansas City, a shocker to everyone but themselves.

“You could tell it was the first game of the season. There’s a number of things – they could probably say the same thing too – there were a lot of things you wish you would have done better,’’ Campbell said. “But at the end of the day we hung in there and we really played great complementary football. That’s what won us the game between special teams, offense, defense when we needed it most each unit picked up the slack.’’

It was two years ago, but it kickstarted two solid seasons.

“It was huge. Back then that was kind of a confidence thing, knowing we could go in there and do that,’’ defensive end Aidan Hutchinson said. “Now flash-forward a couple years and we believe we can compete against anybody. We’re going to go in there and try to execute our gameplan to the best of our ability and hopefully come out with a win.’’

Five things to watch:

ONE: Jared Goff is 2-0 in his career against the Chiefs — once with the Rams and then with the Lions in 2023. He’s at the top of his game but knows being up against coordinator Steve Spagnuolo’s defense is a challenge. “I think that they do a really good job of being very multiple in what they do. And oftentimes you can watch a ton of tape and defenses have certain tells or when they’re in this formation, they do this. They don’t really have much of that,’’ Goff said. “You kind of have to figure it out when you’re out there to some extent. There’s tape we can watch, but they do a good job of making different things look the same and same things look different, type of thing. And they’ve got good players too and that makes it really hard.”

TWO: With the Lions secondary banged up, it’s going to be more of a challenge to defend against the Chiefs’ three speedy wide receivers – Xavier Worthy, Tyquan Thornton and Rashee Rice. “You can do everything right – you can do discipline, you can play the coverage, OK we’ll top some of this stuff, we’ll be disruptive on the releases and all the sudden you missed on one or you didn’t quite get to your landmark in the back end and all of a sudden there’s 60 over the top of your head,’’ Campbell said. “Or you get a catch and run and you miss a tackle and they’re through it.

“The good news is our defense has faced speed. They got a full dose of that in spring and training camp with (Jameson Williams) and (Kalif Raymond) ,and (Dominic) Lovett is not a slouch either. So we’ve got some juice here too and our guys have to face it. You have to be on point when you have that kind of explosiveness. It only takes one play and all of a sudden they’ve got seven out of it,’’ he added.

THREE: Patrick Mahomes is still Patrick Mahomes even though the Chiefs are 2-3. He’s smart and tough. “You have to do a number of things with him – first of all he can smell a rat from a mile away. If you’re going to disguise it better be worthy of a Grammy, because this guy sees it all, he smells it immediately, he can alter protections, he can get to different things in the pass game,’’ Campbell said. “I think you have to do a number of different things but you have to be careful because you don’t want to become something you’re not either. You still want to hang your hat on what you do well.

FOUR: With Terrion Arnold out with a shoulder injury, expect Amik Robertson to step up. “He’s more than a security blanket, it’s one of the reasons we wanted to get him here as a free agent. He’s so feisty and competitive. One of the things he really majors in is man coverage,’’ Campbell said. “He’s a sticky cover guy, very confident, he’s got great hips movement skills and he’s got ball skills. We’re completely comfortable with him playing outside and in the slot. Thank goodness we’ve got him. We don’t feel there’s a dropoff with Amik.’’

FIVE: Another corner expected to get more playing time is veteran Rock Ya-Sin. Running backs coach Scottie Montgomery liked what he saw from him in training camp. “He does provide a tremendous amount of conflict at the line of scrimmage, not only there but at the top of routes where you usually can lean on guys, get heavy leans on people, maybe give them a little something at the top,’’ Montgomery said. “He’s done a really good job of staying close, staying sticky. And then he has an understanding of safety play and corner play so he knows exactly where he can take some of these chances.’’

BONUS: In 2024, the Chiefs were 10-0 in games decided by 7 points or less. This season so far they are 0-3 in those situations.

INJURIES: OUT for the Lions: LT Taylor Decker, DT Alim McNeill, CB Terrion Arnold, LB Zach Cunningham, RB Sione Vaki, DB Avonte Maddox and OL Gio Manu. … QUESTIONABLE: DB Brian Branch, S Kerby Joseph and WR Kalif Raymond

PREDICTION: Lions 28, Chiefs 27.

Lions Jameson Williams, Jared Goff get back to work after missing on 6 of 8 targets

Jameson Williams’ maturity showed on Monday and Wednesday after an off day in the win over Cleveland on Sunday. He was targeted eight times and made just two catches for 40 yards. Certainly not a typical outing for the fourth-year wide receiver.

“I think that was probably the biggest growth we saw when he came in on Monday. You have to come in ready to be coached, and especially when you have a room where the coach is going to be direct, is going to hit the point, but also going to make sure we know the standard is set,’’ wide receivers/assistant head coach Scottie Montgomery said on Wednesday. “And we don’t walk past the standard because the moment you walk past the standard then it’s dropped and that’s the new standard. He understands that part of it.’’

Montgomery said Wiliams was focused on the details in Wednesday morning’s walk-through which would carry over into practice.

Coach Dan Campbell and Montgomery both mentioned that the Lions had one less practice day last week due to playing on Monday and back on Sunday. They didn’t want to use it as an excuse but it played a role in the connection issue.

Neither seems too concerned that it will be a lingering problem because they know Williams and Goff will work on it.

“There’s things I chalk it up to. We have to clean up some things. You can’t act like nothing happened,’’ Montgomery said. “You have to go out and see what the problem was, the issue was. There’s some things we’ll practice a little differently.’’

Goff said it was not a communication problem between him and Williams especially on the deep ball when Williams tried to turn around to catch it.

“I think I missed it a little bit outside. And I think if he was able to come up with that, it would have been him kind of saving my ass to some extent making that play,’’ Goff said. “And it’s one I know he would love to make, and I love him to make, and he can make that catch. It’s a hard catch, though, it’s a really hard catch. But yeah, I think it’s more so me putting the ball where I want to a little bit more inside on him, making that catch a little bit easier and I’m sure he can come up with it.”

Campbell and Montgomery are on the same page. Campbell said it’s just a few things here and there.

“Eyes back a little sooner, Goff just misses on one, he kind of gets hit on one when he’s trying to release the ball. We’re just a little bit off, and I go back to this, we go back to the drawing board,’’ Campbell said.

In the first three games Williams was targeted a dozen times and caught 8 for a total of 176 yards and a touchdown.

After a bit of a rough start in his career, he has trended upward each season.

“When I first got here I don’t know if Monday that would have been possible or today that would have been possible because it would’ve been more about ‘Did I perform at the level I wanted to perform at?’ Now it’s gotten to the point where he’s ‘OK, did I perform at the level I want to perform at? OK, why not and how do I get it fixed.’

“That’s the maturation process that we hoped and we saw. It’s also good to have people in your room to pull you along – whether it’s (David Montgomery) or (Amon-Ra St. Brown) – to pull you along and let you know everybody’s had those,’’ Scottie Montgomery said. “It’s very similar to a back putting the ball on the ground and having to come back after putting the ball on the ground. It’s the growth that happens between the time that you put the ball on the ground and when you go back in.’’

UP NEXT: Lions (3-1) at Cincinnati Bengals (2-2), 4:25 p.m. on Sunday.