David Montgomery called the Detroit Lions’ 2025 season “The year of the reckoning.”
David Montgomery is entering his seventh season in the NFL. The Detroit Lions running back has been an essential part of the team’s running back duo alongside Jahmyr Gibbs. In just two seasons, he’s produced 1,790 rushing yards and 25 touchdowns. Before that, he had several successful seasons with the Chicago Bears .
Despite that, Montgomery still feels overlooked and underappreciated.
“This is probably the hungriest that I have been, because I feel like a lot of people forget that I’m here in the offense, too,” Montgomery said on Sunday. “I’m not here to prove anybody wrong. I’m here to prove myself right and be the best teammate that I can be, but I definitely got a big chip on my shoulder.”
Without a doubt, some of that lack of attention has come due to the success of Gibbs. The Lions’ 2023 first-round pick is coming off a season in which he finished fifth in rushing yards (1,412) and t-first in rushing touchdowns (16). But with Gibbs potentially taking more snaps outside as a receiver, it presents the opportunity to get both players on the field at the same time.
“It’s super exciting,” Montgomery said. “Being able to have me and him on the field at the same time, it’ll be tough for defenses to prepare for us.”
Beyond that, though, Montgomery believes he still has a lot to prove. After ending the regular season with an injury and an unproductive game in the playoffs (seven rushes, 28 yards), Montgomery is out there to prove that he’s still a big factor.
Of course, there’s also a pretty big team goal pushing him. After watching this team nearly reach the Super Bowl in 2023 and squander the NFC’s top seed last year, the craving for a championship remains at the forefront of his mind.
“Everybody is out there hungry,” Montgomery said. “We’re tired of just being close. Everybody’s tired of being close. It’s cool to be close at first, but you don’t want to get comfortable with being close all the time. That’s not what you want to be known for, especially when you know you’ve got the guys that you’ve got on the team. You want to finish it.
“So this is the year for us: the year of the reckoning and the year that we choose that we need to finish.”