I’m not completely sure where this article will end up taking me, but I wanted to share my thoughts on Jahmyr Gibbs’ usage and value and the discourse surrounding those things.

To set the stage for those thoughts, it might be worth taking a quick stroll (can strolls be quick?) down memory lane to recap my intellectual journey with Gibbs as both a player and fantasy asset:

I’m writing this article the morning after Gibbs ran the ball just eight times and played fewer standard-down, passing-down, and goal-to-go snaps than the fresh-off-the-injury-report David Montgomery did on a night when the latter also posted career-highs in carries, touches, and touchdowns. Some people are tilting, some people are on their high horses to push back against the people who are tilting, and (I say this with the awareness that such a statement sounds very high-horse-ish) most in both groups are missing the point in some way or another.

I’ll start with the second group. Responding to someone else’s frustration about their fantasy player not producing (or not being allowed to produce) with something like “the team is winning, why would they change anything?” is both annoying and short-sighted. It shouldn’t be a difficult concept to grasp that winning games is not a justification for every decision made in the process of winning games. Coaches make -EV decisions and still win games all the time (this is self-evident, but as an extreme example consider the fact that only recently have analytically-sound fourth-down and two-point decisions become en vogue around the league -- coaches have been making incorrect choices in those situations for the vast majority of the sport’s history, and it’s not as if everyone was going winless each year). Players make -EV decisions and still win games all the time (otherwise no game would ever be won by a team whose quarterback threw a bone-headed interception, or who had a player incur an ill-advised personal foul penalty). General managers and personnel departments make -EV decisions and still win games all the time (the Chiefs very stupidly took Clyde Edwards-Helaire in the first round in 2020, surely their Super Bowl victory following the 2022 season is not evidence that such a selection was good, correct, or even justified).

So, if winning does not retroactively make every decision made in the process of winning into a correct decision, then it’s completely reasonable to question those decisions. That doesn’t necessarily mean the Lions should have given Gibbs the ball more on Thursday night, but it’s at least worth considering whether that would have been a better strategy than what they ultimately decided to do (even though they won). I’m not really here to argue one side or the other in that regard, but on one hand it’s clear that the run-heavy strategy with Montgomery both worked (it sustained drives and produced three scores) and was appropriate (this doesn’t necessarily mean optimal) given their opponent (a run-funnel defense) and the game-script situations they found themselves in (with a big lead early), and on the other hand it certainly seems like running your freshly-not-injured veteran back 32 times at a very inefficient 3.78 yards per clip when you have another talented (and while differently deployed, more effective on a per-touch basis thus far in the season) back on the roster might not be ideal given the importance of managing player health, optimizing your odds of success on a per-play basis, and using your limited team-building assets (draft picks, cap space, etc.) wisely and efficiently. Similar logic applies when we zoom out from this specific Thursday night game and observe the ways in and degrees to which Gibbs has been used (or not used) so far this season.

Now for the tilters. I think Gibbs managers (perhaps in redraft as well as in dynasty) who are frustrated by his lack of early-season usage either had unreasonable expectations or are prisoners of the moment, or both. Through four games, Gibbs has played 43% of offensive snaps, is averaging 9.8 carries and 3.5 receptions for a combined 13.3 touches per game, and has earned a 13.7% target share. Not only is that piece of the target pie on pace to be an 88th-percentile mark (among backs in the last seven years) and higher than those for all but nine runners in 2022, but if those other rates hold for all 17 games, Gibbs would finish the year with 167 carries and 60 receptions, marks matched by just 24 running backs in the last ten seasons. Other (perhaps analogously gifted) backs had the following usage numbers through four games in their own rookie seasons:

Basically, Gibbs is right on schedule for how we should expect a highly-drafted, dual-threat running back to be used early on in his career, and I even agree that the Lions could (and probably should) be doing more with him, especially in the passing game (because he’s looked good, which should further encourage you as a fantasy owner). There’s room to grow here, and the rookie seasons of guys like Kamara and David Johnson show us that light early-season usage (even from non-first rounders) can grow into league-winning second halves in fantasy.

In other words: chill out, especially if you’re playing dynasty but even in a redraft context. If by week nine or thirteen I haven’t seen any bump in Gibbs’ playing time or in the repertoire of things he’s being tasked with as a receiver, I’ll start reassessing my confidence level in his potential to produce like an RB1 during his rookie contract (because -- as I said above -- his unique skill-set means his value is particularly dependent on proper usage), but four weeks does not a career make and this particular four weeks shouldn’t really even be viewed as some sort of letdown. I took him in a home keeper league and wish he was scoring more fantasy points right now, too, but Gibbs was my RB2 in this rookie class, a mid-RB1 in dynasty, and a guy I expected to be able to lean on in the second half of the season in redraft leagues prior to kickoff in week one, and he’s still my RB2 in this rookie class, a mid-RB1 in dynasty, and a guy I expect to be able to lean on in the second half of the season in redraft leagues today. It’s a situation worth monitoring, but nothing I’ve seen so far has changed my mind regarding anything I thought about Gibbs and the Lions this offseason, and I don’t think anything should have.