While Detroit Lions running back Ameer Abdullah has been short on production he isn’t short on confidence.
The highly touted 23-year old running back entering his 3rd season and coming off an injury-plagued 2016 campaign that limited him to just 2 games and 18 carries wasn’t worried about the potential of Detroit adding a running back in free agency or the draft.
“It doesn’t bother me to talk about that stuff, but at the same time, I don’t really care what really happened, because I feel like I’m a better player than whoever they were going to bring in,” Abdullah said, via the Detroit News.
“It didn’t matter to me. That’s just me being a player and a competitor.”
The ability to compete is what Abdullah is hoping he can stay healthy enough to have and the Lions are hoping that their decision to stick with Abdullah and a backfield of Theo Riddick, Zach Zenner and Dwayne Washington over adding more competition will pay off.
“I wasn’t really counting on [the team not adding someone], I was counting on myself to do the things that I needed to do to be healthy so when the time came to compete, with whoever it was” Abdullah said.
The Lions not bringing in another running back was a major vote of confidence from the team for Abdullah.
But Detroit needs more ROI from Abdullah than they have seen since drafting him in the 2nd round of the 2015 draft and it starts by staying on the field.
If Abdullah can do that, he is likely to have a breakout year in the Lions’ offensive system.