Detroit Lions 2026 training camp preview: How RB roles could shift

With the Detroit Lions’ 2026 training camp on the horizon, we are bringing back our roster preview series to help you prepare for the fun ahead. If you’re not familiar with this series, we guide you, position-by-position, through the roster, examining the starting, reserve, and specialty roles, which players are competing for which jobs, and projecting how the Lions will approach each situation.

So far in this series, we have already covered the quarterback position. In this installment, we will examine the Lions’ running backs room, speculating on current and future roles, and discussing how many players from this group could make the 53-man roster.

Roster construction

Under the Brad Holmes and Dan Campbell regime, the Lions have typically kept between three and four running backs on the active roster and at least one on the practice squad, with the number of players being dictated by injuries. However, a special teams rule change altered the Lions’ approach in 2024, and they’ve opted to keep a firm four running backs on the active and game-day rosters over the past two seasons.

Let’s take a look at what they’ve done in the previous five seasons:

• 2021: The Lions opened the season with four RBs and closed with five (mainly due to injuries), though only three were active most game days.
• 2022: The Lions opened the season with four RBs, and once again only kept three active on gameday.
• 2023: The Lions opened with three RBs (Jahmyr Gibbs, David Montgomery, and Craig Reynolds), increased to four with injuries at the position, then reverted back to three as they got healthy again.
• 2024: The Lions kept four RBs (Gibbs, Montgomery, Reynolds, and rookie Sione Vaki) on the active and game-day roster for the entire season, mainly for special teams purposes.
• 2025: Opened the season with five RBs (Gibbs, Montgomery, Reynolds, Vaki, and Jacob Saylors) as Vaki dealt with injuries over the first two months of the season. Once Vaki was healthy, Reynolds was released in Week 12, and the Lions finished the season with four RBs.

A clear RB1 and a new RB2

As the team increasingly leaned toward Gibbs as their top option at running back, Montgomery reluctantly asked for a trade this offseason in hopes of maximizing his career potential. The Lions granted his request and dealt him to the Texans, where he would step back into an RB1 role.

The message was now crystal clear: Gibbs was indeed headed for a workhorse role as the Lions’ undisputed RB1.

“He’s going to be our bell cow now. He really became more of that last year, but we’re going to hang our hat on him quite a bit,” coach Dan Campbell said in OTAs. “We’re going to do a lot of things we feel like he does well. Now, I’ve mentioned this before. He can run everything that we’ve got. He can run every scheme that anybody’s ever run. He’s not just an outside runner. He...