On Tuesday morning, news broke that Atlanta Falcons running back Bijan Robinson had agreed to a three-year extension worth an average of $22.25 million per year, including $51 million guaranteed. That deal resets the running back market and turns eyes to Detroit Lions Jahmyr Gibbs, who is currently holding in from training camp while he awaits a new deal.
Minutes after the Robinson news broke, Lions coach Dan Campbell took the lectern for his daily training camp press conference and was asked if the Robinson development could help speed up the process for Gibbs.
“I think it certainly’s not going to hurt,” Campbell said. “It’s not going to hurt, but we’ll see. I’m anxious to get Gibbs back out there. Every day that goes by, that’s another day that you feel like you miss with him and getting him out there with the guys and him doing his part. But, there again, it’ll get done when it gets done.”
Gibbs spoke extremely briefly with reporters on Monday after practice and simply told them “time will tell” when a deal is done.
Gibbs and Robinson were drafted in the same draft class, with Robinson being selected eighth overall while Gibbs was taken 12th.
Here’s a side-by-side comparison of stats for both players through three seasons:
At this point, there haven’t been any hard reports on how close a Gibbs deal is to getting done, but some NFL insiders have speculated that it could get done within the next couple of weeks.
