Monday open thread: Who will lead the Lions in rushing attempts?

The search for the Lions next running back has been a long and arduous journey since the retirement of Barry Sanders. For more than 20 seasons, Detroit has tried—and failed—to not only find the heir apparent to Sanders—that’s a fool’s errand—but just someone, anyone, to provide consistent production from out of the backfield.

A couple of weeks ago, our own Kent Lee Platte wrote about if the Lions had hit on a running back in the past decade and how it would have impacted the Detroit’s football team on a macro level—in terms of both their on-field success and the type of dominoes that could have fallen instead of Detroit constantly trying to fill the void at running back year after year.

Which brings us to the year 2020: another offseason in which the Lions used their second round pick to draft Georgia running back D’Andre Swift—just two drafts removed from trading up in the second round of the 2018 NFL Draft to select Kerryon Johnson.

While Johnson is still on the roster, his lack of durability has been his biggest issue at the professional level, and it’s something that led to Bo Scarbrough being the Lions’ second leading rusher despite not being on the team’s roster at the beginning of the season.

So let’s get on with today’s question of the day...

Who will lead the Lions in rushing attempts?

Instead of asking “Which Lions running back will gain the most yards?” I found it to be more revealing for Lions fans to figure out who the team views as their most bankable running back by predicting who will lead the team in attempts. After all, the best runner should receive the most attempts, regardless of any load management the team is trying to deploy.

For me, this team doesn’t draft Swift with their second pick in the draft without viewing him as the focal point of the Lions running attack moving forward—especially while players that so effortlessly fit into their scheme like A.J. Epenesa still on the board.

Your turn.