over the crossbar of the goalpost and drew a 15-yard unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty.
When Lions Pro Football Hall of Fame wide receiver Calvin Johnson did that, it wasn’t a penalty. At halftime of the Seattle-Detroit game, the receiver known as Megatron was inducted into the team’s ring of honor.
“That was for Calvin,” Williams said of his penalty. “He used to do that back in the day. It’s his birthday. He’s getting honored a lot, so I did that for him – and some people in the facility who thought I couldn’t make the dunk, so I had to get up there and show them.”
The penalty notwithstanding, the Lions have gotten more from Williams, who played in the first four games of an NFL season for the first time in his career.
The Lions traded the 32nd, 34th and 66th selections in the 2022 NFL Draft to the Minnesota Vikings to obtain Williams with the 12th choice even though they knew his rookie season would be delayed. Williams sustained a torn anterior cruciate ligament in the CFP national-championship contest for the 2021 season. He wasn’t able to practice with his NFL teammates until Nov. 21, 2022, made his debut on Dec. 4, 2022, and played in six games as a rookie.
On April 21, 2023, the NFL suspended Williams for violating the league’s gambling policy, and he sat out the first four games of the season.
