Who Should I Start? Duke Johnson or David Montgomery

Sunday, May 5, 1:51 PM

Running back Duke Johnson announced his retirement from professional football on Sunday. Johnson was originally taken in the third round (77th overall) by the Cleveland Browns in the 2015 NFL draft out of Miami. He spent the first four seasons of his NFL career with the Browns before spending two years with the Houston Texans. Johnson played for the Miami Dolphins in 2021 and the Buffalo Bills in the final year of his career in 2022. The 30-year-old wraps up his career having recorded 2,265 rushing yards and 11 touchdowns on 532 carries, adding 311 catches on 405 targets for 2,870 yards and an additional 12 touchdowns in 97 games (21 starts) covering eight seasons. Johnson had a career-high 410 rushing yards on 83 attempts in his first year in Houston in 2019.

Tuesday, October 14, 12:26 PM

Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell said that he would like to get running back David Montgomery a "bigger piece of the pie" in the rushing attack, according to Nolan Bianchi of the Detroit News. With a negative game script in the Week 6 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday, Montgomery only saw four carries for 24 yards and caught two passes for 37 yards. It was by far the 28-year-old's smallest role through six weeks of the 2025 season. The Lions offense is at its best when they are dictating the pace of the game and able to mix in plenty of play-action passing. Monty also played a season-low 31% of the offensive snaps in Week 6 after seeing a season-high 53% of the snaps in Week 5. It sounds like Detroit will make it a point to get Montgomery more involved in Week 7 on Monday night against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, making him a more attractive RB3/flex play against a Bucs defense that has been in the middle of the pack in terms of fantasy points allowed to RBs this year.