The Detroit Lions training camp is underway, and the team starts its 2023 NFL preseason on Friday, August 11, against the New York Giants. As players fight and claw for Lions roster spots and starting positions, some players are rising to the top while others are struggling. Here are the three key players struggling early in Detroit during NFL training camp, starting with wide receiver Jameson Williams.

WR Jameson Williams

Jameson Williams was a gamble (pun intended?) when the Lions took him No. 12 overall in the 2022 NFL Draft. The Alabama wideout was one of the most gifted pass-catchers in the draft, but he was also coming off a knee injury, and the team knew he wouldn’t contribute much until the 2023 NFL season.

Then the league popped him for a six-game gambling suspension.

Now, Williams has Lions training camp and the preseason to get himself ready before sitting down for a month and a half, until his comeback in Week 7 (October 22) vs. the Baltimore Ravens.

That makes camp crucial, and it’s not going well for the potential star wideout. He’s missed practices with nagging injuries, and when he is on the field, he’s struggled with drops.

Head coach Dan Campbell seems to think Williams needs to work harder to improve his hands, but even if he does, his ceiling as WR who catches everything thrown his way is limited.

“(The drops) show up and that’s something we’ve talked about with him and he knows that, too,” Campbell told reporters, per St. Louis Today. “I think, man, 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’s not — it’ll never be probably be like one of these elite pass-catchers that you’ve seen, but it’ll be just fine with his speed, and what he’s able to do.”

All this isn’t great for a player who now won’t even have a chance to play more than 12 games in a campaign until his third year in the league.

DE Julian Okwara

Former Notre Dame pass rusher Julian Okwara is another young, relatively high draft pick who just doesn’t seem to be working out as planned.

Okwara was a third-round pick in 2020 and has struggled with injuries throughout his short career. He’s already missed 21 games in three seasons.

It now seems like the 25-year-old defensive end is fit, but the Lions defensive line may have passed him by.

Okwara is now competing with Aidan Hutchinson, James Houston, John Cominsky, Josh Paschal, Charles Harris, and even his older brother, Romeo. And what he’s doing on a play-to-play basis isn’t good enough, according to Dan Campbell.

“He’s a flash player, man. He does something really impressive and then it just kind of reverts back at times,” Campbell said of Okwara. “He doesn’t use what he’s been taught and so he — man, he just has to continually put on tape what he’s been taught and those little flash plays, they have to become the norm. We’re at the point now, we’re Year 3 with him, with us, and so those things have to show up every time because he’s too talented, he just is.”

It’s put-up-or-shut-up time for Julian Okwara, and if he doesn’t turn things around soon, he could be off the Lions roster.

QB Nate Sudfeld

We all know that Jared Goff is the quarterback in Lions training camp who will be starting this season, and the franchise hopes that Hendon Hooker is the signal-caller on the Lions roster who will take over in the future.

That said, Hooker likely won’t start the season as the primary backup while he continues to recover from his knee injury. That means the team needs a backup QB, and Nate Sudfeld’s struggles in the 2023 NFL preseason seem to illustrate that he’s not it.

The veteran journeyman, who turns 30 in December, had every opportunity to win the job behind Goff in Lions training camp, but poor performances in practice and interceptions have hurt his chances.

Because Sudfeld has struggled mightily, the team has brought in “competition” for the QB2 spot. And even though the franchise is still indicating that it’s Sudfeld’s job to lose, Teddy Bridgewater has been one of the best backup quarterbacks in the league over the last decade.

While Bridgewater seems like he’s been in the league since the late 1990s, he’s actually only 11 months older than Sudfeld.

Maybe Bridgewater wakes up Sudfeld, and he starts performing better in practice. However, the Lions will likely only carry three QBs this season, so if his struggles continue, Sudfeld will be the odd man out.