The Detroit Lions’ offense has vaulted them to Super Bowl contention over the past two seasons. No team has scored more than the Lions’ 1,025 points, and the Baltimore Ravens (1,001) and the Buffalo Bills (976) are the only teams that have scored over 900 points since the start of the 2023 season.
It’s a big part of why the Lions went to the NFC Championship Game two years ago and earned a 15-2 record last season. But the Lions will have a challenge as offensive coordinator Ben Johnson bolted to become the head coach of the Chicago Bears.
Johnson’s creativity helped the Lions reach their new heights, and offensive coordinator John Morton will have to find a way to keep things going. While it may not be Dan Skipper running a wheel route, Morton has already flashed some innovation this offseason, and it’s tweaking the role of one of their biggest stars.
New Lions OC Wants to Have Jahmyr Gibbs Play Out Wide More in 2025
Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs is one of the top weapons on offense and was asked about what he thought about Morton during an interview on WXYT last week. While Gibbs didn’t go too deep into the weeds, he revealed that Morton has asked him to play out wide more this upcoming season to get him more involved in the passing game.
“I gotta learn the formations for being split out,” Gibbs said. “I’m being split out like way more than I was the past two years. That’s good. That’s going to be fun. I’ve been waiting on that.”
Whether it be on the ground or through the air, getting the ball in Gibbs’s hand is a great idea. The Lions star has racked up 3,190 yards and 31 total touchdowns from scrimmage since he was taken with the 12th overall pick in the 2023 draft, but took his game to another level last season.
Gibbs enjoyed his first 1,000-yard rushing season with a career-high 1,412 yards and led the league with 16 touchdowns, but he also caught 52 passes for 517 yards and four touchdowns. The improvement in the receiving game was also noticeable from an efficiency standpoint as Gibbs’s yards per route run jumped from 1.10 in his rookie season to 1.69 in his sophomore campaign, according to Pro Football Focus. The 23-year-old was also one of the league’s elite in the latter metric, as only David Montgomery (2.16) and Alvin Kamara (1.75) had more yards per route run last season.
While Gibbs racked up the yards, however, most of them were screens and other short routes, with an average depth of target was 0.4 yards. Putting him out wide is a way to increase that number and give Jared Goff another weapon to target downfield.
With Amon-Ra St. Brown and Jameson Williams out wide, opposing defenses have enough to worry about. But if Morton finds a way to make Gibbs the focal point of his offense, those defensive coordinators may have nightmares when they see the Lions on their schedule next season.
More Detroit Lions News & Rumors: