As people are finalizing their bold predictions for the upcoming Detroit Lions season, there is one aspect that people are waiting to hear from which is about star running back Jahmyr Gibbs and his injury. Lions head coach Dan Campbell is motivated heading into the season and spoke Wednesday about Gibbs which the update should excite fans.
Gibbs is dealing with a hamstring injury that he is hoping doesn’t hold him back from an explosive start of his second season in the NFL after impressing in his rookie year. However, Campbell would say that Gibbs “looks really good” and enjoyed what he has shown in practice thus far in preparation for the opener Sunday according to NBC Sports.
“He looks really good,” Campbell said. “I think here’s the trick with Gibbs, and we tell him this. … When you can run like he runs — I mean, this guy can run — then if you don’t touch that speed in practice at least once or twice a day, you set yourself up for something to happen on Sunday. Because you haven’t — you’re a guy who runs 22 miles an hour, you better touch it because if the first time you touch it in a game when someone’s coming after you, I’m running away, that’s where bad things happen.”
“When you have supreme speed, that’s where you can kind of pull away in practice,” Campbell continued. “You pull away, you pull away, but you’re not — you haven’t had to truly turn it on until you got in the game. So, I think that’s just the trick is educating him on that and making him do that so that he doesn’t have a setback. So, we’re on it, he’s doing it, and we like where he’s at.”
Lions’ Jahmyr Gibbs gives insight into his injury
Gibbs was taken with the 12th overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft coming out of the University of Alabama where for the Lions, he rushed for 945 yards to go along with 10 touchdowns and through the air, he caught 52 passes for 316 yards and one score. The talented Lions running back would also talk about his injury confidently saying he is “98-100 percent” and it was just a “tweak” according to ESPN.
“I’m good. I’m straight. I just had a little tweak,” Gibbs said. “We were running routes, and I ran a go and reached out for the ball and probably overstepped or something.”
At any rate, Detroit is looking to build off of last season where they made it to the conference championship game after winning the NFC North. The Lions open the season Sunday night against the Los Angeles Rams as they look for a hot start in 2024.
