Detroit Lions running backs coach Tashard Choice is a stickler for details – a “negative Nancy,” in his own words.
David Montgomery switched the ball from his right to his left hand and held it away from his body as he crossed the goal line with a touchdown to give the Detroit Lions a 25-point lead in a win over the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday, Oct. 5.
After the running back got done celebrating with his teammates, Montgomery came to the Lions sideline and pleaded with his position coach, Tashard Choice: “Don’t give me a minus on my ball security.”
“You’re dang right, I am,” Choice told reporters when recounting the story last week. “And it’s just part of the game. We got to protect the football. So for me, I’m OK at being that guy. I have to be that guy.”
Choice is a stickler for details – a “negative Nancy,” in his own words. And his intricate approach to coaching running backs is one reason the Lions ranked seventh in the NFL in rushing heading into their Week 6 game against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday, Oct. 12.
Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs give the Lions the best 1-2 running back tandem in the NFL. Both players entered the week with more than 300 yards rushing and four touchdowns, and neither had lost a fumble through five games.
“He’s on us crazy,” Gibbs said. “He be on us about the details.”
Choice, in his first season with the Lions after coaching Gibbs in college at Georgia Tech and spending the past three years at Texas, said he has a handful of “rules of the jungle” that his running backs must abide by.
Protect the football, protect the quarterback and run with physicality top a list that also includes run with second and third efforts, catch the football, run defined pass routes and score touchdowns.
“I came up with that when I first started to get into coaching because I looked at the running back position on how can you positively affect the football game and be a good teammate, and scoring touchdowns is last,” Choice said. “So the thing that most running backs care about, about scoring, I put that last. The thing we’re going to do is (we’re) going to make sure we protect the football and protect that quarterback. And we’re going to run physical, and we’re going to break tackles. And so those are the things that I try to make sure those guys understand.”
Along with their ball security and scoring prowess, Gibbs and Montgomery have excelled in pass protection this fall.
Both players made sack-saving blocks when Gio Manu turned a rusher loose in his first career start at left tackle last week. When asked about Montgomery’s pass blocking Friday, Choice said – repeatedly – “Animal.”
“When you do stuff away from the football to make big plays, that’s what football is all about,” Choice said. “Especially when guys are really good who are detailed and really good at their position, you want them to get better at other aspects of the game to help the team.
“And so how he blocks, his attention to detail, when he doesn’t do it right, like I’m on him about those things. Him and Jah both.”
And even when they do, do things right, like Montgomery scoring that touchdown last week, Choice doesn’t let up.
“I can show you clips of Jah putting his facemask on people,” Choice said. “That makes me really, really excited, but then I still tell them they’re sorry as hell.”
Dave Birkett covers the Lions for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on Bluesky, X and Instagram at @davebirkett.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Lions RBs coach Tashard Choice all 'about the details'
Category: Football
