Detroit Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs has been so good through two seasons he has analysts owning up to their bad takes about where he was drafted in-person. As good as he was as a rookie in 2023, he was even better in 2024, topping 1,900 yards from scrimmage while leading the league (and setting the new franchise record) in touchdowns from scrimmage (20).
And, of course, Gibbs shared the workload with David Montgomery for much of the season before reaching another level when Montgomery was out for the last few games of the regular season. The scary part, for opposing defenses anyway, is there's plenty of room for Gibbs to be used more effectively in the passing game.
Jahmyr Gibbs led the running back field in an unsurprising stat last season
According to The 33rd Team, Gibbs led the league in percentage of rush attempts that went for 10-plus yards last season (minimum 200 carries). The tabulation appears to include the playoffs, so doing a little math shows that Gibbs had 46 rushes of 10-plus yards on his 264 total carries last season. Six of his 16 touchdowns on the ground during the regular season were from 10 or more yards out.
The gap between Gibbs and second place Derrick Henry is almost equal to the gap between Henry and No. 8 (Tony Pollard) and No. 9 (Joe Mixon).
Gibbs was also in some elite company in yards before contact last season. That's easy to brush of as a product of good blocking, but it's also a product of his speed and elusiveness that correlates to his percentage of big plays on the ground.
When considering the best running back seasons we've ever seen, Marshall Faulk's 2000 campaign as part of the Rams' "Greatest Show on Turf" comes to mind (2,189 yards from scrimmage, 81 receptions, 26 total touchdowns). He of course also did that on touch volume (334) that we rarely see from a running back nowadays.
Gibbs narrowly topped 300 touches last season (302), and with that as the benchmark he neared Faulk in 2000 with proficiency on that kind of volume.
Not that we needed more evidence of how good a season Gibbs had in 2024. But it's never bad to have as much data as possible to show it.
