Former Kansas City Chiefs running back Isiah Pacheco fractured his fibula in September 2024, and he hasn’t been the same player since.
After signing with the Detroit Lions as an unrestricted free agent this week, Pacheco will have a chance to reestablish the determined, smashmouth running style that earned him the nickname “Pop.” In the meantime, he showed that he still has an electric personality during his Lions introductory presser on Thursday.
When asked how his first conversation with Lions head coach Dan Campbell went, Pacheco giggled. “Ah, man, our first conversation, I was screaming on the phone,” the 27-year-old said. “‘Ahhh, let’s [expletive] go! I’m ready to go! Put me in!'”
Then, Pacheco changed his tone to mimic Campbell’s and nailed his impression: “He’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, Pacheco, what number are you going? Are you going with 10?'”
Elsewhere in his presser, Pacheco shared that he had eight interested NFL teams during his free agency, including Kansas City. But Detroit, he said, was “the first place that I thought of” once the Chiefs opted to go after former Seattle Seahawks running back and reigning Super Bowl LX MVP Kenneth Walker III. Pacheco also expressed a desire to revive the version of himself who took the league by storm.
The Chiefs selected Pacheco out of Rutgers in the seventh round of the 2022 NFL Draft. Pacheco led the Chiefs in rushing in his first two seasons - 830 yards and five touchdowns as a rookie, 935 yards and seven touchdowns in 2023 - and served as an unexpected piece in the Chiefs’ back-to-back Super Bowl championships.
After breaking his fibula in Week 2 of the 2024 season, Pacheco returned on Nov. 29 but was a shell of his former self for the remainder of the year. Last season, Pacheco suffered an MCL sprain in late October, which kept him out until Thanksgiving. Overall, he posted 462 yards and one touchdown across 13 games in his final year with the Chiefs.
Pacheco’s arrival in Detroit was preceded by the Lions trading running back David Montgomery to the Houston Texans. Montgomery, known as the Knuckles to Jahmyr Gibbs’ Sonic in Detroit, is known as a punisher.
Gibbs is the undisputed featured back in Detroit for the foreseeable future. The idea is for Pacheco to complement Gibbs like Montgomery did from 2023 to 2025, but Pacheco will have big shoes to fill. According to NFL senior researcher Tony Holzman-Escareno, Montgomery, Gibbs, Barry Sanders, Billy Sims, and Dutch Clark are the only players in Lions history with 2,500-plus yards and 30-plus touchdowns.
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