When the Detroit Lions made running back Jahmyr Gibbs the No. 12 overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, there were a lot of questions about positional value. The Lions insisted that Gibbs was not merely a running back, but instead an offensive weapon, and that his skill set and ability to contribute in all aspects of the game justified selecting him higher than running backs had come off the board in recent years.
Gibbs then had a really good rookie season. He ran for 945 yards and 10 scores, averaging 5.2 yards per carry. He also caught 52 passes for 316 yards and another score. He made the Pro Bowl and finished fourth in Offensive Rookie of the Year voting. All of that worked out great. But Detroit’s plan to make him an “offensive weapon” who lined up all over the place didn’t exactly come to fruition. He did almost all of that work out of the backfield.
Here’s what we wrote last offseason, when both the Lions and Falcons employed the “offensive weapon” rationale:
Anyway, the idea is that [Bijan] Robinson and Gibbs are so versatile and so explosive that you don’t have to just play them in the backfield and hand them the ball. You can throw them the ball, and you can line them up anywhere — including in the slot or even out wide. The issue there is, well, that is just not really a thing that happens …
Since 2017, just three times has a running back lined up in the slot or out wide for at least 10 snaps per game: Christian McCaffrey in 2017, Tarik Cohen in 2019 and J.D. McKissic in 2020. That’s it. Cohen and McKissic were part-time players whose roles were near-exclusively about receiving, while that 2017 McCaffrey season was his rookie year, before he became Carolina’s full-time starter at running back. Even last season, with McCaffrey playing under position-less football aficionado Kyle Shanahan in San Francisco, he totaled just 108 slot or wide snaps in 17 games (6.4 per game), and…
Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/lions-rb-coach-wants-to-see-jahmyr-gibbs-take-the-next-step-as-a-pass-catcher-do-more-in-the-slot/
Author : Jared Dubin
Publish date : 2024-06-04 13:37:17
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