Jahmyr Gibbs had career-high 29 carries, and Dan Campbell says he can do even more

Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs had a career-high 29 carries for 156 yards and two touchdowns on Sunday, and he added five catches for 30 yards. That’s an enormous workload for any player, but Lions coach Dan Campbell said after the game that Gibbs could do even more.

“I thought it was a very promising Week 1,” Campbell said. “Certainly, we know what Gibbs is, what he’s capable of, and he’s still not there yet. And I mean that in a good way.”

What more could Gibbs do? Campbell said that on a day when Gibbs’ longest run was 21 yards, he’s capable of breaking some much longer runs than that.

“We were this close to breaking three or four more of these, breaking them wide open,” Campbell said. “A shoestring away, just a little longer block at the second level. I mean, we were close, and we’re going to get that cleaned up, and he’s going to get better. Week 1, yeah, I like where he’s at. I’m glad he’s here.”

Campbell is not looking for Gibbs to get 29 carries a game for 17 games. That would be 493 carries for the season, which would be the second-most in NFL history. But Campbell said he’s happy to keep feeding Gibbs the rock.

“Do I want to set records with how many carries? No, that’s not something I want to do, but when you look at a guy and you think he’s in good shape, he had a really good camp, he’s in the best shape I’ve seen since I’ve been here,” Campbell said.

Gibbs will have to be in good shape for the workload the Lions are giving him.