Running Back · Detroit Lions

Jahmyr Gibbs

No. 0 · 4th season

Dan Campbell handed Jahmyr Gibbs the keys, and now everyone wants a seat in the car

The Detroit Lions' head coach doesn't hand out featured roles quietly. When Dan Campbell says someone is the guy, he means it — and right now, Gibbs is the guy.

Gibbs came into the league as a first-round pick out of Alabama, the kind of player scouts described as a mismatch waiting to happen: fast enough to outrun linebackers, shifty enough to make safeties miss. He spent his first couple of seasons sharing carries in Detroit's backfield, which kept a ceiling on how much damage he could do in any given week.

That ceiling is gone. Campbell has named Gibbs the Lions' featured back heading into 2026, meaning the full workload is his to carry. For a player built the way Gibbs is built — explosive in the open field, dangerous as a receiver out of the backfield — more carries and more targets is a different kind of opportunity.

The football world noticed immediately. Gibbs is now being talked about as a potential first pick in fantasy football drafts next year, with real debate about whether he can finish as the top scorer at the position. That kind of buzz means something: it is the collective read of a lot of people betting on where production is going to come from.

Gibbs has been good. Now the Lions are asking him to be the centerpiece. Whether those are the same thing is what 2026 is going to answer.

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