This offseason, the Detroit Lions backfield went through a major change. With the trade of David Montgomery\u2014the team\u2019s change-of-pace back to Jahmyr Gibbs\u2014the Sonic and Knuckles duo will have to be replaced in 2026.<\/p>\n
Detroit addressed this need by signing former Chiefs running back Isiah Pacheco, who presumably steps into the RB2 role behind Detroit\u2019s Pro Bowl back in Gibbs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still have Vaki,\u201d Holmes said. \u201cWe wanted to get Vaki a little bit more heading into camp last year, but he missed some time, kinda set him back a little bit. But the book\u2019s not closed on him as a runner, either. So we\u2019re excited about the room in general.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vaki will be entering his third season with the Lions after Detroit took him in the fourth round of the 2024 NFL Draft. Though he mostly played safety in college, in his final year at Utah, he carried the ball 42 times for 317 yards and two touchdowns. Detroit drafted him exclusively as a running back and special teamer. While he\u2019s been a very good special teams player through two seasons, his impact on offense has been very limited.<\/p>\n
In Vaki\u2019s rookie season, he was able to play in 16 games, but with the efficiency of Gibbs and Montgomery\u2014and a solid RB3 in Craig Reynolds\u2014his offensive opportunities were limited to six rushes and three receptions. Last year, as Holmes mentioned, Vaki\u2019s season got off to a rough start with a hamstring and groin injury that caused him to miss much of training camp and six of the first eight games of the season.<\/p>\n
But with Montgomery and Reynolds now gone, Vaki will clearly have a chance to compete for the RB3 role and could even warrant some playing time on offense in 2026. If Pacheco takes time to adapt to the offense or continues to battle injuries, as he\u2019s had for the last two seasons, Vaki could be in for the most significant season of his career. Okay<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This offseason, the Detroit Lions backfield went through a major change. With the trade of David Montgomery\u2014the team\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":837137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[153,1889,7],"class_list":{"0":"post-837136","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-detroit-lions-news","9":"tag-detroit-lions-quotes","10":"tag-football"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116301925858654544","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=837136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/837137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=837136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=837136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=837136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}