Overview
- Gibbs skipped the Lions’ opening training-camp practice on Wednesday while remaining with the team as his representatives and Detroit continue active extension negotiations that ESPN’s Adam Schefter said could finish within weeks.
- The Lions exercised Gibbs’s fifth-year option in April, keeping him under contract through 2027 with about $14.29 million fully guaranteed and giving both sides more time and bargaining flexibility.
- Detroit traded David Montgomery in the offseason, leaving Gibbs as the unquestioned centerpiece of the backfield and increasing the football and roster reasons for the team to seek a long-term deal.
- Gibbs’s production strengthens his market case — roughly 2,635 rushing yards, 29 rushing touchdowns, 1,133 receiving yards and nine receiving scores over the last two seasons plus at least 10 TDs in three straight years — putting him in line with recent top running-back contracts.
- General manager Brad Holmes’s history of extending young foundational picks, together with the Lions’ preseason opener on Aug. 13 and regular-season start on Sept. 13, creates clear checkpoints that could accelerate a final agreement.