Jahmyr Gibbs: I didn’t expect the Lions to draft me, I know the Cowboys wanted to

The Cowboys have tried and failed to move the ball with a couple of over-the-hill running backs, Ezekiel Elliott and Dalvin Cook, this season. But they might have had one of the best young running backs in football, if things had gone a little differently.

Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs, who is averaging 103 yards from scrimmage per game this season, says he wasn’t expecting the Lions to draft him 12th overall in 2023, and actually had been told that he was the Cowboys’ guy if he was still on the board when they picked.

“To Detroit, no I really didn’t [expect to go there]. I knew they liked me, but you know when you go on a visit, it seems like they all like you,” Gibbs said on Richard Sherman’s podcast, via CBS Sports. “It was crazy I knew for a fact Dallas was going to get me at 26 if I was still there, and a couple other places like Cincinnati was going to get me. I think they [the Bengals] were going to trade up to like 18 or something around that range. I didn’t think I was going to go 12th.”

The Cowboys have settled on Rico Dowdle as their top running back, and he has certainly been better than Elliott and Cook, but he lacks the burst and explosiveness of Gibbs, a running back who was a surprising pick for the Lions but has become the player Detroit hoped he would be.