Jahmyr Gibbs has put himself in the center of the NFL MVP conversation, and after the way he’s started the season, it’s hard to argue against him.
Detroit’s Week 8 win over Minnesota did plenty for the Lions’ standing in the NFC North, moving them to a game behind the Vikings and keeping them perfect in divisional play at 2-0. It also left the 1972 Miami Dolphins as the league’s only undefeated team. But the bigger ripple from that result is what it says about Gibbs, who has been making a very strong case to become the first running back since 2012 to win the league’s MVP award.
He has been the best running back in football, and the production has been as loud as the highlights. Gibbs is averaging 149.9 yards from scrimmage, tops among running backs, with Kenneth Walker the next closest player more than 20 yards back.
He leads the NFL with 51 missed tackles forced in just seven games, according to Pro Football Focus, and he’s on pace for 121 missed tackles forced, which would be the highest total in PFF’s tracking history. He also has the most runs of 10-plus yards with 27, and he ranks seventh in yards after contact per attempt at 3.56, while sitting second in total yards after contact with 559, according to SumerStats.
The numbers behind his rushing profile are just as striking. Gibbs owns the fourth-best success rate among running backs at 48.4 percent across 157 carries, but he also has the most stuffed runs in the NFL with 33 and ranks 38th among 46 qualifying backs in stuffed rate at 21.0 percent, according to SumerStats.
That combination of volume and efficiency is part of what makes his season so unusual. The three backs ahead of him in success rate are Blake Corum, Christian McCaffrey and Jaylen Warren, all with far fewer carries than Gibbs.
The comparisons to Barry Sanders have become impossible to ignore, and the source material doesn’t tiptoe around them anymore. For fans old enough to appreciate it, Gibbs is giving them a rare chance to watch two of the best running backs in NFL history in the same franchise lineage. The weekly flashes are obvious, but the underlying metrics are what make the Sanders talk feel more than just hype.
He’s also stacking up traditional MVP numbers. Gibbs is averaging more than 110 rushing yards per game and is on pace for nearly 1,900 rushing yards.
He’s scoring at a 1.4 touchdowns-per-game clip and is tracking toward 24 total touchdowns, which would be the highest total since LaDainian Tomlinson’s 31 in 2006, when Tomlinson won the MVP. The last running back to fully line up the stats and the narrative was Adrian Peterson in 2012, when he rushed for 2,097 yards and dragged a flawed Vikings offense into the playoffs.
What gives Gibbs a real opening is the lack of a runaway quarterback candidate through eight weeks. Joe Burrow has the strongest statistical case, leading the league in completion percentage at 73 percent, touchdown passes with 20 and passing yards per game at 302.1.
But if the Bengals can’t catch the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC North and their defense keeps them out of the playoffs, that case gets complicated. Trevor Lawrence is also in the mix, with 17 touchdown passes, four interceptions and the league’s best passer rating.
Josh Allen could still get there too, especially if a pile of one-yard rushing touchdowns helps him win the award for the second time in three seasons.
Still, Gibbs is forcing the issue in a way running backs rarely get to anymore. The league has spent years treating the position as replaceable, but Detroit’s offense looks different with him driving it. Without David Montgomery sharing the backfield, Gibbs has become the engine, producing behind an offensive line that has been good, but not great.
If MVP is supposed to go to the player who changes how defenses play and carries the weight of an offense week after week, then Gibbs belongs in the front of the line. Right now, he’s not just in the race. He’s setting the pace.
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