Mike Florio Is Once Again Clueless About the Detroit Lions
Credit: Junfu Han via Imagn Images
Every now and then, Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio washes off his purple-and-gold facepaint and talks about the Detroit Lions. He almost always makes you wish he’d just stick with the Vikings talk, and Friday was no exception. On his show, he discussed why David Montgomery‘s return shouldn’t change things for the Lions offense.
“Jahmyr Gibbs has been phenomenal with David Montgomery injured,” Florio starts out. “And it’s almost better for the Lions if it’s just Jahmyr Gibbs. They’re committed to the Sonic and Knuckles approach, like… Mike Alstott and Warrick Dunn in Tampa. You got Montgomery, you got Gibbs, that’s great. But when Gibbs has the potential to be Saquon Barkley or Derrick Henry, what do you do?”
Don’t worry! Florio is on the case! “It sure sounds like they’re gonna plug Montgomery into the same role he’s always had, which will keep Gibbs from having the kind of game that we saw against the Vikings in Week 18.”
Uh… no…
You won’t hear any argument against Gibbs’ mini-run as the lead back. The dude was incredible. In three games, he had nearly 500 yards from scrimmage (335 on the ground) and six touchdowns. He’s a premier back in the NFL.
But having Gibbs be the bell cow when Montgomery is in the lineup is missing the point of the Lions altogether. Detroit doesn’t use Gibbs like Barkley or Henry because they don’t need him to be Barkley or Henry. We saw it work when they had to have Gibbs take on that role and workload, but things worked great before Montgomery went down.
What this team needs to do is punch other teams in the goddamn mouth, and Montgomery helps them do exactly that. This team can outclass almost anyone on pure skill, but as Kerby Joseph said this week, “We be beating people up.” Having Montgomery dish out punishment up the middle stacks on top of the punishment linemen and linebackers already get from the offensive line, and it’s a big part of the Lions’ overall philosophy of creating cumulative attrition that wears opponents down.
Gibbs is a tough runner for his frame, but Montgomery’s grinding style lets Gibbs do what he does best: overwhelm defenses with speed. Florio acts as if the Lions’ running back snap share is a zero-sum game, that any snap Montgomery takes removes opportunities for Gibbs to be brilliant. That’s not the case at all. The two work in concert, not take away from each other.
That matters, and it’ll especially matter in the playoffs. All apologies to Florio, but he only got to see his Vikings lose one playoff game this year, and Week 18’s dismantling wasn’t it. You can call it a playoff-style atmosphere all you want, but everyone knows that the playoffs are a different thing altogether. Defensive coordinators bring the A-games and the closer you are to one-dimensional, the easier it is to successfully gameplan against even someone like Gibbs. Montgomery gives Washington, Philadelphia, and St. Louis an extra thing to worry about, an extra wrinkle to plan against.
Besides, it’s not like Gibbs was hurting for big performances before Montgomery’s injury. Gibbs topped the century mark for yards from scrimmage eight of his first 14 games and had four multi-touchdown outings. He even had a 160-yard performance (116 rushing), two-touchdown performance against Florio’s Vikings in Week 7 — the exact kind of big game Florio claimed wouldn’t be possible with Montgomery “taking” snaps away from Gibbs.
Good effort, Mike, but maybe just stick to crying into your Grain Belt and tater tot hot dish in between skol claps next time.
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