Wide receiver Jameson Williams had two touches during his rookie NFL season. He caught a 41-yard touchdown pass on the first and ran 40 yards on the second.

Williams also had a 66-yard touchdown reception nullified by an offensive holding penalty.

And at his end-of-the-season press conference, Detroit Lions general manager Brad Holmes said the former Alabama standout offered only a taste of what’s to come.

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“I think a little bit of what you saw, I don’t think that’s anywhere close to where this kid’s going to go,” Holmes said. “He made some big plays and he had some flashes.

“But the other thing about Jameson, he’s just a football player, man. … That dude just wants to be out there on the football field. That’s how he’s wired. That’s how he is. But I don’t think anything he did this year is anywhere remotely close to where he’s going to go.”

The Lions traded the 32nd, 34th and 66th selections in the 2022 NFL Draft to the Minnesota Vikings so they could use the 12th choice on Williams on April 28, even though they didn’t know when he would be able to play.

Williams caught 79 passes for 1,572 yards and 15 touchdowns and averaged 35.2 yards and scored two touchdowns on 10 kickoff returns for Alabama in 2021. But his only season with the Crimson Tide ended during Alabama’s 33-18 loss to Georgia in the CFP national championship game on Jan. 10, when he suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament.

Detroit placed Williams on reserve/non-football injury on Aug. 23. He began practicing with his teammates on Nov. 21. The Lions activated him on Dec. 3, and he made his NFL debut the next day, 47 weeks after his knee injury.

Williams’ rookie stats show he caught one of the nine passes thrown to him and had one rushing attempt.

“It’s the first time for him going through an injury and a rehab process like he had to go through, and to his credit he went through it,” Holmes said. “Just getting through that for the first time and then when he completed that at where we were at in the season, like, that was the first hurdle, that was the first step. And, yes, he was in meetings and he was at practice every day, but it’s different not getting those live reps.

“All those other receivers, like DJ (Chark) and Josh (Reynolds) and (Amon-Ra) Saint (Brown) and Kalif (Raymond), those guys had been working with (quarterback) Jared (Goff) way back in the offseason, so they had all that chemistry and all those reps and getting on the same page. And so Jameson kind of had to start that after he got healthy and cleared to get back on the field.”

On Dec. 11, Williams started the Lions’ scoring in a 34-23 victory over the Minnesota Vikings with a 41-yard reception.

On Jan. 1, Williams went 40 yards on an end-around in Detroit’s 41-10 victory over the Chicago Bears.

Williams joined the Lions’ active roster during Detroit’s second-half surge. The Lions won five of their six games after activating Williams, but Detroit came up a tie-breaker short of making the playoffs for the first time since 2016. Seattle and the Lions finished with 9-8 regular-season records, but the Seahawks got the postseason spot because of a 48-45 victory over Detroit on Oct. 2.

“We’ll determine what that role is, and a lot of it is on him, too,” Holmes said about Williams’ 2023 season. “He’s going to have to put the work in this offseason. He’s going to have to be dedicated in his approach. We can provide all the resources and lay it all out, but he’s going to have to take the accountability and do it on his own. But got a lot of faith and confidence in Jameson, and, obviously, because we traded up for him and made the move for him, we all have the same belief, so I think he’s going to be just fine.”

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.