The Detroit Lions lost veteran receiver Marvin Jones earlier this week when he was forced to step away from football for personal reasons and the two sides agreed to mutually part ways.
This leaves the Lions with an open roster spot and about 20-25 snaps a game at receiver. That might seem small, but that's a decent amount of snaps to figure out what to do with. What's the next move for the Lions at receiver? I have three options.
Get Kalif Raymond worked into the game plan more
Raymond has been the Lions second leading guy in receiving yards in the past two seasons. The team signed him to a new contract this summer as well. You would think that he would once again be heavily involved in the Lions offense. That is not the case. Raymond has been utilized as much or less than Jones in a lot of situations.
The only problem that stands in the way of this is that the Lions are using Jahmyr Gibbs in a lot of the receiving situations that Raymond thrives in. A lot of the short yardage type looks. Still, it's worth it to see what else Raymond can do for you.
Get Jameson Williams more involved
It's been three weeks since Jameson Williams returned earlier from suspension and he's been largely unseen through most of the three games that he's played. He played 15 snaps against the Panthers and nine snaps against the Bucs. He was able to get 26 snaps against the Ravens, but most of them were late in the fourth quarter after the game had been totally decided.
The Lions are in this tough position with him where he needs experience, but he's also not showing a lot when he's out there. It's a damned if you do and damned if you don't type of thing. I think the damning leans more towards the don't part. Williams needs some live football if he hopes to get better and become what many think he can be.
Monday against the Raiders is the perfect time to get Williams involved in more than just the teams one or two deep shots they take here and there. Let's see what the kid can do in a full game as one of the main parts of this offense.
See what you have in Antoine Green
Green played 28 snaps against the Ravens last Sunday. Before that he had played 20 total pass snaps all season. He's only been targeted twice as well.
Green has a long way to go, but the Lions saw enough in him to make him part of their 53 man roster after a camp where it looked like a couple guys were going to edge him out for a while. Now that there's some more snaps to go around, let's see what Green can do with that deep ball or contested catch.
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