When the Detroit Lions play the New York Giants on Aug. 11 in the first of their three preseason games, expect to see a lot of wide receiver Jameson Williams.

After the former Alabama All-American’s injury-affected rookie season and with a six-game NFL suspension awaiting at the start of the 2023 campaign, Lions coach Dan Campbell said Detroit wants to get the 12th pick of the 2022 NFL Draft plenty of preseason playing time.

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“We’re going to douse him with a ton of game reps,” Campbell said on Wednesday. “He needs that. He needs that, as he does practice. And I’m telling you, as with anybody, the more reps he gets, the more time on task, the more consecutive practices and reps he can put together, he’ll just grow. I really believe that. And I do believe he wants it. I do believe he wants to get better, so he’ll grind through this. And let’s see where we can go with it.”

The Lions traded up to draft Williams last year even though they knew he wouldn’t be ready to play when the season started. Williams sustained a torn anterior cruciate ligament after he had caught four passes for 65 yards in Alabama’s 33-18 loss to Georgia in the CFP national-championship game on Jan. 10, 2022. Williams didn’t practice with the Lions until Nov. 21.

Williams played 78 offensive snaps in Detroit’s final six games of the 2022 season. He had two touches during his rookie season. 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.

On April 21, the NFL announced Williams had been suspended for the first six games of the 2023 season. Williams was suspended for betting on non-NFL games while at an NFL facility. The NFL’s gambling policy prohibits anyone in the league from engaging in any form of gambling in any club or NFL facility or venue, including the practice facility.

The suspension doesn’t begin until the Monday before the Lions’ first regular-season game, so Williams is eligible to practice in training camp and play in preseason games. But Williams came up “with a little something in his leg” at Detroit’s second training-camp practice and missed a week of work on the field.

Campbell has a goal for where he wants Williams to be when the wide receiver must leave the team.

“I told him this back in the spring,” Campbell said. “You want to feel like by the end of camp there’s a level of polish. The splits, the route depth, you want to feel like there’s a lot of polish to detail, and that he’s got this pretty good rapport with (quarterback Jared) Goff by the time he leaves, because I think if we can get there, I don’t think it’ll take very long to pick it back up once he comes back. I think that’s the next step.

“And I go back to this – and it’s not an excuse – but he hasn’t practiced. He didn’t practice last year. He came in during the year, and we kind of had a couple of plays for him here and there. This is his first significant time to get – and he was hurt last week kind of – so the longer we can keep him on the field and just keep working through these things, he’ll get better.”

One area that the Lions want to see improvement from Williams is his hands. Last season, Williams caught one of the nine passes thrown to him.

“That’s something that we’ve talked about with him, and he knows that, too,” Campbell said. “I think working his hand mechanics, he’s got to work those pre-practice, he’s got to work them post-practice, and, I mean, really he’s just got to grind on it. And even then, it’ll probably never be like one of these elite pass-catchers, but it’ll be fine with his speed and what he’s able to do. But there’s a number of things he can clean up with it, and I think it’s just time on task, work through it because honestly there are some things — just a simple change of the way your hands are, like ball location, pinky-to-pinky, thumb-to-thumb — that’ll go a long way for him. And so we just got to keep working through it. …

“He can run, and he’s been able to create so much separation where he came from, that wasn’t as big of a deal. Well, in this league, you get contested catches. That’s why I brought up the details of his routes. With his speed, the more he can hone in on the details, his explosive speed, there’ll be a level of separation, you’d like to believe, different than most where it’s not always going to be these contested catches.”

After playing the Giants, Detroit faces the Jacksonville Jaguars on Aug. 19 and Carolina Panthers on Aug. 25 in preseason games.

Williams will become eligible to play in the regular season on Oct. 22, when the Lions visit the Baltimore Ravens.

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