Jahmyr Gibbs has exploded onto the scene in his first three years with the Detroit Lions. In these three seasons Gibbs has put up over 1,200 yards from scrimmage racking up 49 total touchdowns and hitting the 1,800 yard from scrimmage mark in 2024 and 2025. Gibbs has been the type of running back you expect to come out of Alabama after Mark Ingram, Derrick Henry, and Josh Jacobs. With the news from Lions Head Coach Dan Campbell that Gibbs is gearing up for the “bell cow” role in this Detroit offense in 2026, what should we expect from Gibbs going into this season?
How has Jahmyr Gibbs been used?
Since entering the league in 2023 Jahmyr Gibbs has been electric when he’s been on the field. Gibbs’ ability to make defenders miss and rip defenses apart with his blazing speed and shiftiness in open space has vaulted Gibbs into conversations for best running back in the league. In his first season he closed out the year as the 10th overall running back on 57.1% of snaps , and has since been RB1 on 52.3% in 2024 and RB3 on 67.7% in 2025. Gibbs ability to do great things to start his career sets him up to be one of the greatest running backs of this generation.
While he’s been splitting carries with David Montgomery forming the legendary Sonic and Knuckles duo, the Lions have had 1,476 carries for 6,840 yards and 77 touchdowns. Averaging 134 yards-per-game with 1.5 touchdowns per game over that stretch. Now, we can’t just combine Sonic and Knuckles statistics and set our expectations for Gibbs as the accumulative totals of two different players. We need to look at what Gibbs has done on his own in this situation. Let’s look at the numbers.
What can Gibbs do?
Jahmyr Gibbs has seen 20 carries only six times in his career. In this small sample of games, he has averaged 22.5 carries for 104.2 yard per game with 1.3 touchdowns. This is fantastic. That’s an average of about 17 points per game. But those are just his rushing stats. If we factor in the amount of receptions that Gibbs has had in this six game sample, we can get a better picture. In these games he averages 4.1 catches for 28.6 yards totaling about 24 fantasy points per game. That’s only three more points than he’s averaged per season the last two years. I believe this is a solid foundation to build on for the coming season.