‘I’ll line up at safety’ – Lions RB willing to adopt two-way Travis Hunter role to boost Super Bowl chances
NFL training camps are in full swing and for the Detroit Lions, their first day back has served as a painful reminder of how their 2024 Super Bowl charge unravelled.
Having advanced to the playoffs with an NFC-leading 15-2 regular season record, tied with the AFC’s Kansas City Chiefs, the Lions earned a divisional round bye and were touted as one of the frontrunners to go all the way and win the Super Bowl.
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However, these dreams of lifting the Vince Lombardi Trophy for the first time in franchise history were quickly quashed after they suffered a premature elimination to the Washington Commanders as their rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels led them to a devastating 45-31 victory as the sixth seed.
If going just by their record alone, Detroit looked to have cruised through the regular season.
That was partially true, thanks to running back duo Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery combining for 3,045 scrimmage yards and 32 touchdowns.
Individually, Gibbs - who was the 12th overall pick out of Alabama in the 2023 draft - led the NFL in rushing touchdowns with 16, whilst he almost eclipsed the 2,000-yard mark on just 302 touches.
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On the first day of 2025 training camp, though Gibbs was still reeling from last season’s disappointment, and when fielding questions from the media, his motivation to win a Super Bowl could not have been any clearer.
“I want to win a Super Bowl. I’ll line up at safety, at nickel.” he said via WXYZ-TV Detroit’s Brad Galli.
Entering Year 3, Gibbs is primed to take on an even higher volume of the offense, but should Detroit find themselves in the unfortunate event of being short on defense, the 23-year-old joked that he would step in and do whatever role was asked of him if it led to his team reaching the Super Bowl for the very first time.
Though the likelihood of Gibbs playing any sort of role on the defensive side of the ball is close to zero percent, there is one player in the NFL who is looking to become the league’s first dual-threat.
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Having excelled as both a wide-receiver and a defensive back during his college days at Colorado, Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter wants to continue to do so in the NFL.
With the Jacksonville Jaguars announcing the second overall pick’s arrival to the team with two social media posts -- one calling him a wide-receiver, and the other calling him a defensive back -- on the surface it appears as though the Floridian outfit will go ahead and utilise their elite prospect on both sides of the ball.
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However, some NFL players, including Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, have their doubts.
"I don't know, because teams are going to be going after him. They're gonna try and make his day miserable," Kelce said when appearing on an episode of the Bussin' With the Boys podcast.
“If he plays corner, they're gonna run deep balls at him all day. They're gonna run the wide receivers, just take off on him all day, just to try to get him tired. Why wouldn't you just attack him that way?"
As it pertains to the Lions’ breakout star, though, Gibbs is aiming to influence the offense in ways he has never done before.
“I gotta learn the formations for being split out,” Gibbs said in another interview with WXYZ-TV Detroit. “I'm being split out way more than I was the past two years. That's good. That's going to be fun. I've been waiting on that.”
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Quarterback Jared Goff is hoping to continue to ride the momentum after he enjoyed a stellar 2024 regular season campaign, recording 37 touchdown passes at a 72.4 pass completion percentage - both career-highs.
However, the Lions as a collective will hope that this upcoming season isn’t as riddled with injury as it was last year, where they lost key members of the team, including superstar defensive end Aidan Hutchinson.
The 24-year-old was leading the league in sacks (7.5) and had 19 total tackles through the first five weeks of the season, before he suffered a season-ending broken fibula and tibia in their dominant 47-9 display against the Dallas Cowboys.
But head coach Dan Campbell offered a positive update on Hutchinson’s status, calling his progress ‘exciting’.
"It's just good to see his confidence back in himself," Campbell said. "You can tell he has a lot of faith in where he's at right now."
Since taking over as head coach in 2021, Campbell has slowly revolutionized a Lions unit that was deep in mediocrity, having failed to reach the playoffs on 20 occasions since the turn of the millennium.
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"We're out to finish what we started,” Campbell said.
“We're gonna close out some of these debts. That's gotta be the attitude, that's the mindset.”