David Montgomery went to play in a place he knew, Lambeau Field, on Thursday night. But this time, he was wearing a different team’s uniform, and by the end of the night, he felt something he had never felt before.
Even though David Montgomery never won a game against the Green Bay Packers when he played for the Chicago Bears, this time, he scored three touchdowns! His great performance helped the Detroit Lions win 34-20 on Thursday Night Football.
“It made me very happy,” Montgomery told the reporters when he talked about winning against the Packers for the first time. “You know, I never did that before, but I am so lucky to be on a team with such awesome guys.”
Montgomery was the definition of a workhorse on Thursday, piling up 32 carries, which matched a career-high and stood as the most for any player this season in the NFL.
He scored on runs of 3, 2, and 1 yard in the first, second, and fourth quarters, respectively. All told, he had 121 yards on the aforementioned 32 carries for an average of 3.8 yards per carry.
The latter is hardly a celebratory statistic, but he was able to ground and pound the Packers, helping to propel Detroit to a 27-0 run in the first half before quelling any comeback hopes with a score with six minutes to go. According to Next Gen Stats, Montgomery battered and bruised the Packers with 113 yards after contact — the most in a single game in his career.
“He does get better throughout the game,” Lions quarterback Jared Goff said. “He gets better the more he gets hit. The more that he is able to see the holes and see what’s going on — and yeah, he did get better. I think there were two types of runs like where the lane was wide open, and he was running right through them doing his thing.
Then, there were runs where there wasn’t much there, and he kind of made something out of nothing. That is when you know your guy is in the zone a little bit. You try to keep feeding him, and he did his thing tonight.”
The Idea Was for Montgomery to Keep Pushing
The impact made by Montgomery, along with his workload, was all the more impressive considering he’d missed Week 3 with a thigh injury and was questionable to play Thursday.
But still, the head coach, Dan Campbell, and the offensive coordinator, Ben Johnson, gave the ball to Montgomery a lot at the beginning of the game. He did not make really big runs, and fans probably still want to see more from Jahmyr Gibbs, who did well, too. The idea was for Montgomery to keep pushing and tiring out the Packers, and he did that for the whole hour-long game.
“You could see it in his eyes,” Campbell said. “He looked really excited and prepared. His body looked strong and ready. So, we were going to let him play as much as he wanted, as long as his body was okay with it, and it was definitely ready.”
Unfamiliar with defeating the Packers, Montgomery is also foreign to where he put the Lions on Thursday night, which is atop the NFC North. During his time with the Bears from 2019-2022, Montgomery’s squads never finished better than second.
He is going to be a big help for the team this season if the Lions want to keep winning. What happened on Thursday night was really important for Montgomery. He used to lose to the Packers a lot, but this time, he helped Detroit win for the fourth time in a row against Green Bay.
“It felt really special,” Montgomery said. “I am so lucky to have these amazing teammates. Winning today means a lot to me. Now, I can tell my son that I beat the Packers, and that makes me really excited. I am super happy to be on this team.”
