The Detroit Lions will host the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday, and an obvious area to attack their opponent is on the ground. The Vikings come into Sunday’s game allowing 4.3 yards per carry, but were dogwalked for 207 rushing yards in their Week 8 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers.
For a team with David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs leading the way, there’s a good chance that the Lions will give the Vikings a heaping dose of the running game, and it could even clear a path for running back Sione Vaki to get involved.
Vaki has been sidelined since suffering a groin injury against the Baltimore Ravens in Week 3, and it’s been easy to forget that he’s a member of the Lions' backfield and special teams unit. But according to Pride of Detroit’s Jeremy Reisman, Vaki practiced on Monday and is expected to participate the rest of the week, giving him a chance to play on Sunday and remind Lions fans who he can be.
Sione Vaki Could Finally Return vs. the Vikings in Week 9
A fourth-round pick by the Lions in the 2024 draft, Vaki was a converted safety coming out of Utah. The Lions saw some upside in an offensive role despite his 4.62-second time in the 40-yard dash and a 7.93 relative athletic score as a running back (compared to an 8.54 score as a safety), but he hasn’t been healthy enough to have that gamble pay off.
Vaki appeared in 16 games last season but missed one game with a knee injury. The 24-year-old hasn’t been able to get out of the trainer’s room this season, dealing with a hamstring injury that kept him out for the first two games of the year, and he went back on the shelf after his injury in Baltimore, spending the past four games fighting through a day-to-day designation.
The good news is that there could be an opportunity to contribute on Sunday. In addition to the Vikings' deficiencies against the run, Dan Campbell has expressed a desire to get Montgomery more involved in the offense, giving him 13 carries in a matchup with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers before the bye. Gibbs has been even better, logging 5.1 yards per carry this season, and could help the game get out of hand against Minnesota’s run defense.
Even if Vaki doesn’t get the work in a traditional sense, there could be an opening at kick returner as Craig Reynolds is nursing a hamstring injury. Regardless, there should be ways for Vaki to contribute and perhaps jog the memory of Lions fans who may have forgotten about him.
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