Welcome to Week 10 of the 2023 Footballguys Roundtable. Our intrepid panel of fantasy pundits discusses and debates four topics every week. We split the conversation into separate features.
This week's roundtable features these four topics:
- Can't Go Home Again (see below)
- Bears Ground Game
- Rookie QBs Revisited
- Either/Or: The QB Edition
Let's roll.
Can't Go Back Home Again
Matt Waldman: David Montgomery is practicing this week. He was RB8 after Week 4 with just three games played and RB6 in points-per-game average.
Jahmyr Gibbs has been RB4 for the past two weeks (7 & 9) the Lions have played, and his 28.8 points per game in PPR make him RB1 in fantasy average.
You can't go home again. You can't put the genie back in the bottle or the toothpaste into the tube. These are all sayings that haven't held true in Detroit.
- In 2021, D'Andre Swift finished as RB15 with only 13 games played, but his points-per-game average ranked him 10th among runners. Meanwhile, Jamaal Williams was RB43 based on total fantasy points.
- In 2022, Williams finished as RB13 with a league-leading 17 rushing touchdowns. Swift played 14 games and finished 21st.
Will Dan Campbell keep the same role for Montgomery that made him the most productive back in Detroit, or do you think Gibbs will earn the lead role and relegate Montgomery to a much lesser share?
Dan Hindery: Most likely, the answer is somewhere in the middle. It is difficult to imagine David Montgomery stepping back into the massive role he had early in the season. Jahmyr Gibbs has been too good the last couple of weeks to let Montgomery dominate the backfield opportunities.
Plus, the team has invested too much in Gibbs to think Dan Campbell is going to play him less than 40% of the snaps as he did early in the year. On the other hand, it is unlikely that Gibbs will maintain the same role he has had recently.
Gibbs has played 60-plus snaps in back-to-back games, and he is not built for that sort of workload. My expectation is we see Gibbs lead the backfield in snaps and opportunities, but not by much. Something like a 55-45 or 60-40 split in favor of Gibbs is my projection moving forward.
Joey Wright: I do not think Jahmyr Gibbs will be given the lead running back duties for the Detroit Lions. However, I don’t think David Montgomery is going to be given as much work as he was before. When we saw both Gibbs and Montgomery together this season, Gibbs did not see double-digit carries in a single game. Montgomery averaged 23 per game.
However, Gibbs did see most of the passing downs work with him out-targeting Montgomery 16 to 4. I am expecting what should be a happy medium for fantasy managers of both backs. Montgomery will lead the team in carries with the goal-line work, while Gibbs continues to see most of the passing down work while pushing towards double-digit carries on a weekly basis.