4 Thoughts to End the Week: Montgomery's future, what LB corps looks like next season and o-line's injury situation
Allen Park — Here are four thoughts to end the week as the Detroit Lions prepare to host the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday.
What to do about Knuckles?
In 2022, after more than two decades of mediocrity, Detroit’s ground game delivered its best season since the retirement of Barry Sanders.
The collective easily topped 2,000 rushing yards that season, averaging 4.5 yards per carry, and scored 23 times. The franchise hadn’t seen anything like it since Sanders’ historic 1997 campaign.
Yet, despite the success, Brad Holmes didn’t hesitate to remake the room the following offseason. That bold decision remains among the general manager’s best work during his five-year tenure.
The reshuffling started in free agency, where the team refused to exceed its valuation of fan favorite Jamaal Williams, who had broken Sanders’ single-season mark with 17 rushing touchdowns. Williams walked in free agency, taking a three-year, $12 million offer from the New Orleans Saints, calling Detroit’s offer disrespectful on his way out the door.
The Lions took that money and put it toward bringing in David Montgomery, a modest upgrade on paper, but with intriguing under-the-hood metrics that suggested he’d thrive playing behind Detroit’s stellar offensive line.
Holmes completed the remodel, stunning the NFL by drafting Jahmyr Gibbs with the No. 12 pick in the draft a month later, ridding the franchise of DeAndre Swift’s perpetual durability issues in a trade two days later.
The vision worked to perfection. Over the past two seasons, Montgomery and Gibbs formed one of the best tandems in league history, culminating with more than 3,000 yards from scrimmage and 32 total touchdowns in 2024.
Things worked so flawlessly that the Lions signed Montgomery to a two-year extension more than a year before his current deal expired. It’s hardly an unusual move for a team to lock up a vital piece early, but far less common at the running back position.
Still, the two all-around backs complemented each other, fed off each other, and kept each other fresh. Modeled after the New Orleans Saints’ tandems of Alvin Kamara and Mark Ingram, and later Latavius Murray, Detroit’s duo exceeded them. Why wouldn’t you want to keep that going?
However, even though both Gibbs and Montgomery were stellar contributors to the team’s high-octane offense, it became clearer by the game that the former was a transcendent, game-breaking talent that merited more than half the backfield touches.
The Lions recognized this, too, and after two seasons of operating with Montgomery as the starter, flipped the tandem’s roles coming into the 2025 season.
Who could reasonably complain? Gibbs had averaged 5.6 yards per carry and scored 20 touchdowns in his second season. Not finding ways to maximize his touches would have been coaching malpractice.
But with the switch has come unintended consequences. The team has struggled to find the rhythm it’s had the past two seasons. Because Gibbs is the answer in two-minute situations and when the team is trailing in the second half — which has been a far more frequent occurrence this season — the snap counts and touches have become more lopsided than intended.