After the season they had, the Detroit Lions are one great off-season away from being genuine contenders. With that comes some tough decisions on how to get the roster into prime form to compete all season and be healthy going into the playoffs. According to a recent report, there “ May not be a future” for Swift in Detroit due to his injury history. Should the Lions make this decision, and if so what would be the future of the Runninback Position in Detroit?
The Positives Of Keeping Swift On The Lions
The Number one and most obvious positive to keeping Swift is the dynamic factor when he is actually on the field. When D’Andre Swift is on the field he has the ability to make a play out of any situation, whether it’s a run up the middle or a screen pass he can turn a one-yard gain into a 20-yard gain. We saw this in multiple instances this year including when he turned a diving catch at the 20 into multiple forced missed tackles into a touchdown. His play-making ability is what makes him such a great fit for what the Lions are going for with their offensive scheme, which is a ground-and-pound system into a play-action game to confuse opposing defenses.
Another positive to having Swift on the roster is he brings a fear factor to opposing defenses since he can do it all. If a team doesn’t gameplan specifically for Swift he will find a way to expose the opposing defense whether it’s in the passing game or run game he will likely end up with over 100 yards from scrimmage. The final positive for keeping Swift is having a rookie contract for the upcoming year. If the Lions got rid of Swift they would need a replacement to play alongside Jamaal Williams which would likely mean paying someone in free agency, but a rookie contract would be cheaper and you could use that money elsewhere.
The Negatives Of Keeping Swift On The Lions
The most obvious negative is the main reason he may not be on the Lions in the future, which is that he can’t stay healthy. It feels like in every other game in that he gets significant playing time, Swift ends up getting injured one way or the other. In every season Swift has played he has not played 15+ games and has started at most 8 games in each of those seasons. Sadly this is due to how dynamic he is, when a player like him gets a lot of playing time and makes a play all the time by putting his body on the line it causes a lot of stress on the ligaments and results in a lot of injuries.
The other negative for keeping Swift on the Lions is that he will likely want a good bit after this next season in free agency. Even though he gets injured a lot we’ve seen in recent years how much runningbacks with backgrounds as he gets paid than not do as well due to the amount they get injured and put their bodies on the line. Examples of this could be Todd Gurley, Melvin Gordon, Leonard Fournette, Phillip Lindsay, and Chris Carson. So while he is a great player you have to question whether is it worth taking that risk with his injury history, but the Lions could still use next year as a prove-it year and hopefully he can show that he can hold up in the future.
If The Lions Get Rid Of Him, How Could They Replace Him?
This off-season is one of the best in recent memory for free-agent running backs and the Lions could definitely decide to go the veteran route. If they were to sign a free agent they could look at guys like Saquon Barkley, Josh Jacobs, Tony Pollard, Kareem Hunt, or even Dont’a Foreman but will they take the risk to pay a running back? The other option, unless they want Jamaal Williams to be the Bell Cow Back, would be drafting a guy like Bijan Robinson at 18 or waiting a little bit and picking up a player like Jahmyr Gibbs or Zach Evans and having them on a rookie deal.
