Brad Holmes confirms Jameson Williams has been at Lions’ voluntary workouts

“Let’s get comfortable with being uncomfortable because you know what uncomfortable is? It means you’re good. It means you have expectations upon you–and now this team does.” — Dan Miller, Voice of the Lions

As Detroit Lions fans, we always seem to be waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it’s truly time to heed Dan Miller’s words and stop trying to look for problems to worry about.

This week, the Lions started their 2023 voluntary offseason workout program, where players are allowed inside Allen Park to participate in conditioning workouts with their teammates. During these sessions, players can run endurance drills and lift weights but they do not participate in any football-specific activities.

Over each of the first three days of this week’s workouts, the Lions' media department has been releasing pictures of the workouts, showing players interacting and enjoying being back. Lots of smiles from players and hard work being accomplished is a great public relations message to send to Lions fans during the offseason.

But as we scroll through the pictures, an all too common pattern has been for fans to look for the players who are not in the pictures. One glaring omission that fans have latched onto has been 2022 first-round pick Jameson Williams.

Williams has been the focus of lots of scrutiny from fans this offseason, leading our own Mike Payton to address some of the fans' concerns in an article explaining The misunderstandings about Lions receiver Jameson Williams.

Now, yes, it does seem a bit unusual to not have pictures of such a high-profile player in the daily photo reels, but as it turns out, Williams was actually in Allen Park—at least on Wednesday—as confirmed by general manager Brad Holmes.

“He was just here yesterday,” Holmes said at his pre-draft press conference on Thursday.

Additionally, per a team source, Williams was also in Allen Park on Thursday as well. But Erik, was he there on Monday? Tuesday?

We don’t know, and frankly, it really doesn’t matter all that much. There are a litany of reasons that could explain why someone would miss voluntary workouts, and Williams wasn’t even close to the only player not pictured.

Maybe Williams was not at the voluntary workouts because he had a prior obligation that was scheduled before the workouts were on the docket. Or maybe he was actually in Allen Park all three days, but he was getting medical examinations to check on his ACL recovery, and therefore not on the field during the time the photographs were taken. There are hundreds of legitimate reasons why someone might not show up in a photo array.

So let’s all take a breath and get comfortable being uncomfortable.