Dan Campbell had an interesting response when asked about Jahmyr Gibbs’ contract situation
Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell doesn’t sound worried about Jahmyr Gibbs’ contract. One remark about the timeline caught my attention.
It was very noticeable on Wednesday when the Detroit Lions officially got their training camp underway, and one of the best players in the NFL was not out there practicing. Now everyone is wondering what is happening with Jahmyr Gibbs and the Lions.
As we know, both Gibbs and Atlanta Falcons running back Bijan Robinson, who also did not appear in practice on Wednesday, are both looking for big extensions at the moment that would make them the highest-paid running backs in the league. What we don’t know is if this is a holdout or hold-in.
On Thursday morning, we got a chance to ask Lions head coach Dan Campbell about what’s going on.
“I’ll just leave it at this. You guys know how I feel, how we feel about Gibbs, and how the team feels about him, and I’ll leave it at that.” Campbell said. “Listen, all the other stuff. My job is to coach who’s out there right now, and I love the kid, but I mean, I got a team to coach right now, and listen, whatever all this is at some point here, it’ll get done. It’s gonna get done. I’m not even sweating.”
Not really the answer that anyone was hoping to get, but the answer you might expect at this juncture. The Lions are going to be understandably guarded about this situation, as every team is going to be.
The good news is that Campbell reiterated multiple times that he’s not sweating any of this and believes that the Lions will get a deal done, and the interesting part is that he actually seemed surprised that a deal was not already done.
“Honestly, I didn’t think twice about it. I didn’t think it would be a problem. I really didn’t. I thought we’d have been done by now. But I also know how this goes, man. I’ve been in this league a long time, player and a coach, so I know how it goes. So I’m not even sweating it. I’m not sweating it.”
We’ll see what happens and when the Lions get a deal done for Gibbs. But with Robinson also looking for a deal, it becomes this situation where whoever goes first loses. So there’s potential this lasts longer than anyone really wants it to, but it would be a shock if it wasn’t done in the coming weeks.
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