In the days leading up to Monday night’s game in Green Bay, Lions running back Ameer Abdullah made his case for more carries near the end zone after spending the first half of the season watching Dwayne Washington get most of that work.
Abdullah got his chance on Monday night and there were mixed results. Abdullah ran for a four-yard touchdown in the first half, but fumbled on an attempt from the one-yard-line in the fourth quarter. The Lions recovered and kicked a field goal, but that fumble was Abdullah’s second of the night and his final rushing attempt of the game as Theo Riddick got the remainder of the work.
Abdullah called the second fumble a “selfish decision” because he was trying to stretch the ball into the end zone and otherwise shrugged off his loose grip on the ball.
“I’m just going to keep doing the same thing I do,” Abdullah said, via the Detroit Free Press. “I play running back, man. I get the ball a lot. That’s no excuse, but it happens. As long as it happens less times than more often, it’ll be good.”
Fumbles were a big issue for Abdullah as a rookie in 2015 as he had five of them, but it had been 154 rushing attempts before Abdullah lost his first fumble in the third quarter. If it’s a similar gap before his next one, the issue should be forgotten but any replay of his rookie year should mean a change in the way Detroit deploys its backfield.