Lions exercise Gibbs' fifth-year option
The Detroit Lions wasted no time with Jahmyr Gibbs, exercising the running back's fifth-year option to keep him with the team.
Video Transcript
The Detroit Lions have exercised the fifth-year option for running back Jahmyr Gibbs.
That guarantees him $14.3 million for the 2027 season, after which he becomes an unrestricted free agent.
Of course, I think there's almost no chance they actually let him hit free agency.
What this really does, them picking up this fifth-year option, is extends the window they have to negotiate a contract extension with him, and I do think they'll get that contract extension done well ahead of his 2028 free agency.
To me, this is a team that has made a pretty strong habit of getting out ahead of this with their younger players, not really letting them test the open market.
Teams like the Eagles have done this well and have done a lot of success getting deals done early.
They're not at any point going to have Jahmyr Gibbs not on this roster, whether it be next year or the year after that.
He's, I don't want to say a Lion for life, but they really do love Jahmyr Gibbs, and I think they showed that even more this offseason, not with the fifth-year option, but by trading Dave Montgomery.
They got a fourth- and seventh-round pick for him, plus offensive lineman Juice Scruggs.
It's a pretty strong haul, and then they went out and did almost nothing to replace the Dave Montgomery role.
I know Isaiah Pacheco is a name fantasy managers are very familiar with, but they're paying him less than $2 million.
That's not all that much more than the veteran minimum, what they are required to pay any single player given the amount of time he's been in the league.
To me, who takes on the Dave Montgomery role?
In part, it's Jahmyr Gibbs, and we've seen this when Dave Montgomery goes down in the past.
Jahmyr Gibbs looks like the RB1 overall.
Right now, fantasy managers are treating him as such.
He's currently the 101.
There's nothing I would change about that, and I think he's not only the 101, he's a really strong 101 candidate given what we've had in previous years.
