Detroit Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs was named NFC Offensive Player of the Week after recording four touchdowns on Sunday Night Football against the Minnesota Vikings.
“Yeah, unbelievable, yeah. I don’t know what his numbers were. But, yeah, he was impressive, and we kind of came into this one knowing we were going to need him to be and he played his tail off and our offensive line blocked their tails off," said Alex Anzalone. "Yeah, he was special today, and we needed him to be.”
With teammate David Montgomery out injured, the former first-round pick has taken advantage of the opportunity to be the Lions' clear-cut No. 1 running back.
Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell was asked, after being defeated 31-9 in the season-finale, how challenging it is for any defense to slow down Gibbs.
"He’s as explosive as anybody in the National Football League, and I thought we did a pretty good job on him for the most part, but against a player like that, all it takes is a little bit of space. All it takes is a little bit of grass for him to hit that thing, and he’s going to be tough to tackle in space when he gets out there. And, we knew that going in," said O'Connell. "I thought (Brian Flores) 'Flo' and the guys did some really, really good things in the first half to keep us in the football game.
"This game could look differently in the end very easily with one or two more plays down in the red zone being successful and the way that works with momentum and the way that works for the energy of your whole team," O'Connell continued. "I thought the guys fought, I thought they battled. It got to a point there at the end once we weren’t successful on our second-to-last drive, knowing that we were going to play Monday night, I wanted to be sure that we started to take some guys out, and it was about starting to prepare for Monday night, even though that game hadn’t ended yet.”
