The Lions have had a clear pecking order at running back this season, with Jahmyr Gibbs starting all six games, playing 62 percent of offensive snaps, and getting 87 carries and 23 catches. David Montgomery has come in off the bench in all six games, played 39 percent of offensive snaps, and had 65 carries and nine catches. That may change going forward.
Lions head coach Dan Campbell said he’d like to balance things out offensively, and that means putting the ball in Montgomery’s hands more.
“That’s something that I always try to look at,” Campbell said. “We certainly don’t want either one of them getting too much. But I know that it’s a little more tilted towards Jah right now. And a lot of that comes in the two-minute reps that we get. Now, the other day we only had six of them, but a lot of times that’s where that goes because he’s normally in on that, and that can skew it. But I don’t feel like we’ve gotten Jah too much in a game yet, necessarily. I think he had 36, 37 snaps the other night. So, I feel pretty good. But as far as balancing them out, I would like to balance them out. I would. I would like to give David some more. Find a place to get him a few more. We were hoping we would be able to do that in the second half some more, but it was kind of the way the game went.”
Lions assistant head coach Scottie Montgomery also said today that he wants to make sure the Lions are giving David Montgomery enough opportunities. That could mean a smaller workload for Gibbs and bigger workload for Montgomery on Monday night against the Buccaneers.
