While the Lions were preparing to take the field Tuesday for the first of two joint practices with the Giants, running backs coach Scottie Montgomery was raving about Jahmyr Gibbs.
"Jahmyr is just, what we’ve been able to put on his plate is probably the most shocking thing," Montgomery said on 97.1 The Ticket. "We’re training him in every way that we can train him, multiple positions, and he’s handling it well. And when he gets a chance to flash, he flashes."
So we flash to the end of practice, Detroit's first-team offense against New York's first-team defense, best on best in the red zone. After Jared Goff had completed a couple passes to Amon-Ra St. Brown (who else?) to move the chains, the Lions lined up Gibbs in the backfield. Goff got the Giants to bite on a play fake to Gibbs, who curled quickly upfield for a wide-open catch and waltzed into the end zone.
The running back is a receiver. Or is it the other way around? A few moments later, Gibbs caught another pass in the flat and danced his way through the defense for another touchdown. The play might have been called back for a hold, but it wouldn't have gone anywhere without Gibbs' make-something-out-of-nothing talent. And in another 11-on-11 period earlier in the day, Gibbs sliced through a sliver of space in the Giants' defensive line for what would have been a big gain on the ground.
Montgomery came to the Lions from the Colts where he spent two seasons coaching one of the best pass-catching backs in the game in Nyheim Hines. And while Montgomery sees some of the same qualities in Gibbs, he said it's really difficult "to find the exact match" for Detroit's explosive rookie because "there's another facet to him that people don’t really see: he’s a hell of a ball-carrier." Which can be a hell of a problem for opposing defenses.
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"When you combine those two things, they can't just send out the nickel when he goes out there, because we can put him in the backfield and do whatever we need to do from a (rushing) standpoint," Montgomery said. "We haven’t really even seen everything he can do, we don’t really know where his roof is right now, but his versatility makes him truly unique."
Giants linebacker Bobby Okereke is a really good player. One of the NFL's leading tacklers the past two seasons with the Colts, he got a four-year, $40 million deal from New York this offseason to hold down its defense. When he lined up against Gibbs in a one-on-one pass-catching drill Tuesday, Okereke didn't have a chance. Gibbs froze him with a stutter step and then left him in the dust as he hauled in an over-the-shoulder catch like a polished receiver.
Lions linebacker Alex Anzalone can relate. Asked what Detroit's defense got out of Tuesday's practice, Anzalone smiled and said, "Not going against our offense was nice for once. Not having to cover Gibbs out of the backfield made my day a little less stressful."
"He’s twitchy, he’s fast, he’s got a dead-leg to him that can get you and once he gets away from you and gets separation, it’s tough to recover," Anzalone said.
Here's what we can say about Gibbs through two weeks of camp and one really impressive practice against a team that won a playoff game last season. When Brad Holmes calls the 12th overall pick "a multi-phase, elite, explosive, position-less weapon," he means it. When the Lions GM says he didn't draft a running back, he means he drafted a player who can do so much more. Gibbs' ceiling remains to be seen, but it sure looks higher than "the roof."
As Lions legend Barry Sanders said Tuesday, "They couldn't be more geeked about Jahmyr Gibbs."
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