THE Detroit Lions just keep getting more and more bad news on the injury front. Come back running David Montgomery suffered a season-ending knee injury during the team's Week 15 loss to the Buffalo Billsconfirmed Lions head coach Dan Campbell. “We’re going to miss him,” Campbell told reporters Monday.
Montgomery initially left the field with a knee issue in the second quarter. He was away for a while, with Jahmyr Gibbs taking all the shots for the rest of the half. Montgomery was back in the lineup after halftime, until he came out again and Gibbs played the rest of the game.
Montgomery wasn't effective on the ground against Buffalo (five carries for 4 yards) but he contributed in the passing game (four catches for 31 yards on his four targets), and he was half the game. The best running back duo in the NFL this season. He and Gibbs formed a thunder and lightning combination that crushed opponents all season.
They have split the work on the field almost exactly equally this season, with Gibbs totaling 186 carries and 39 receptions compared to Montgomery's 185 carries and 36 receptions. Gibbs was the more efficient of the two players, both on the ground (5.6 yards per carry versus 4.2) and through the air (10.1 yards per reception versus 9.5), but the fact that they were there all season to keep the other products fresh have proven extremely valuable.
With the the injuries pile up For Detroit's defense, it's even more important that the offense be as efficient and explosive as ever, and that will be more difficult without Montgomery. This has arguably been the Lions franchise's best season yet, but as we head into the home stretch, some wheels are falling off what looked like the most complete team in the league until very recently .
2024-12-16 21:00:00
