Monday Overreaction: Detroit Lions first round pick Tyleik Williams is a total bust

Williams played just 11 snaps against the Vikings. It is confusing since we haven't heard any injury news. He clearly wasn't hurt because he played in this game. So what happened? Do the Lions just not like him anymore? Is he a bust?

Absolutely not. That's why it makes it so confusing. He had been playing well this season. Williams hasn't stuffed the stat sheet, but that is not even remotely close to the only indicator of whether a player is playing well.

Williams has been good at eating space and allowing for one-on-one opportunities for pass rushers; he's been doing well with stuffing the run, he's batted down passes, and he's brought pressure. The comparisons to Alim McNeill still make a lot of sense. If he's next to him as a starter, these two could cause some problems.

It was expected that he would take a back seat once McNeill returned, but nobody thought he'd be in the third row of a Ford Expedition. Perhaps the Lions wanted to go a little bigger in this one, and that's why they played Tyler Lacy a lot more. This seems a little more like a strategy than anything else. Perhaps Dan Campbell will have an explanation this week.

Speaking of McNeill, the similarities go beyond play style. Go back to his rookie year, and you'll see multiple occasions where McNeill played just 13 or 15 snaps; it didn't make him a bust. It made him a rookie that the Lions wanted to set aside for a game to try something schematically. He turned out just fine. We need to stop rushing to label players as busts. You wind up being wrong about it a lot.