Sometimes news conferences are boring — for everyone. And sometimes they provide quotes like this, from Lions running back, Jamaal Williams, who used to play for the Green Bay Packers, and was asked about the Aaron Rodgers’ saga Thursday after practice:
“I’m focused on these Detroit Lions, baby. I ain’t doing nothing else. I’m worried about getting us right, you know what I mean? Everybody got their lives to worry about. My people are here.”
Or this:
“It’s going to be a great year. (We’re gonna) take this offense and go down and score every time we get the ball. That’s the mindset.”
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Or this:
“I’m grateful to have people that believe my talents and know what I bring to the team. I never want to let people who believe in me … (I never want) to let them down.”
We could go on, and he did, for 13 glorious minutes on Zoom, eyes wide, mouth grinning, filling up (figurative) notebooks in a way so few Lions did the last few years.
He told stories. He told jokes — “I used to be addicted to the hokey pokey. Then I turned myself around.”
He provided declarations.
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Like what’s going to happen when he takes the field this fall for the first time as a Lion, and, say, runs a route out of the backfield.
“People haven’t seen this side yet. That’s what’s going to be crazy,” said Williams. “They are about to get this juice. They are about to get all this swag daddy. They might be,’ like, where was all this at?’”
Well, that’s a good question. Or maybe not. Not if you consider that Williams was the backup runner in a pass-happy offense in Green Bay. And that’s still only 26. And that his new offensive coordinator, Anthony Lynn, likes using two backs, and loves getting them the ball in space.
Which is where Williams insists he will surprise people this fall, and has already surprised people in OTAs, as he did a linebacker Thursday afternoon when he plugged his foot into the turf, changed directions, and left his teammate with nothing but air.
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When asked about the move, Williams’ eyes lit up. He cracked a smile from Allen Park to Ford Field and back.
“It felt good,” he said. “I’ve been trying to tell the defense, ‘don’t look at this number and think, oh, running routes is going to be easy.’”
No. That would be a mistake. Because he wants that, all of that.
“And if you think you’re frisky, come one-on-one,” he said. “I want all of that. You know what I mean?”
It’s not that Williams arrived here with a chip on his shoulder. Or with something extraordinary to prove. He’d already shown plenty in Green Bay; that he was a reliable option and would be a good fit alongside D’Andre Swift.
Power and speed, so to speak. Only Williams can run, and Swift will lower his shoulder. And while Williams has shown talent for yards after catches and Swift has shown ability to make defenders whiff, they can do a bit of what the other can do, too.
That’s the idea.
Though it still isn’t the only reason he is here. Brad Holmes and Dan Campbell and the coaching staff wanted him here for what he brings off the field as well.
During the draft, both the general manager and the head coach spoke a lot about personality and the kind of presence they want in the locker room. Assistant head coach and running backs coach, Duce Staley, spoke about it Thursday before practice.
“We talk about juice,” said Staley. “It’s natural for (Williams).”
On the field. Off the field. In film sessions, especially.
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His teammates know he is there. The effervescence. The confidence. The leadership. The positivity. He is trying to spread as much of it as he can.
He’s always been like this. He doubled down after his father passed away a few weeks ago, a father he didn’t know much when he was young but who came back into his life.
“Me and him were on good terms,” Williams said. “I’m just grateful that my last words were ‘I love you.’”
He is grateful for so much these days, he said. To his family, his new coaches, his new defensive teammates that are pushing him.
To the front-line folks out in the world doing the jobs that keep it spinning, like a custodian from an area school he helped set up with gift bags and game tickets recently as part of a charitable organization he’s helping.
“They are not looking for a reward,” he said of the workers. Yet he wants to help give them one, even if it’s hard to be there when he does.
“Those types of things? They make me cry,” he said.
They make him smile, too. Most things do. You can hear it in his voice and see it in his eyes.
He is coming.
Contact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @shawnwindsor.