Lions' Michael Williams moving from tight end to offensive line

Off-season rookie camps are where NFL teams experiment with different personnel packages and formations, trying to find an unexpected advantage wherever possible. 

For the Detroit Lions, that even means moving players around from other positions. Michael Williams, who spent last season as a tight end, is transitioning to become an offensive tackle for 2014. 

Williams has never played the position before, leading to a serious work-in-progress. 

“It’s only been two OTAs, so I find myself listening to the pass part of it instead of the protection,” Williams said to ESPN after practice. “I actually messed up a play [Wednesday] doing that. It catches me off guard and then I get mad at myself and try to calm back down."

A seventh-round pick in 2013, Williams spent last season on injured reserve after breaking his hand during training camp. He's doing anything he can to make sure he lands a spot on the 53-man roster, as he otherwise faced the prospect of being the fourth tight end on depth chart, a position that usually means unemployment. 

He measures up at 6-foot-6 and 270 pounds, incredibly large for a NFL tight end. That's a big reason coach Jim Caldwell thinks the switch should be a good fit. 

“A guy who is probably a natural. I mean, he had to fight to keep his weight down. He came back and he was somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 pounds. You don’t see very many 300-pound tight ends. He’s a big guy, so I think it allows him not to necessarily have to worry about cutting weight all the time and things of that nature to kind of fit the position.”