Isiah Pacheco Injured Reserve: Lions RB Out Four Games as Jahmyr Gibbs Workload, Rushing TD Props Take Center Stage

The Detroit Lions placed running back Isiah Pacheco on injured reserve Tuesday due to a back injury, a move that will keep the veteran ball carrier out for at least the first four games of the 2026 season. Head coach Dan Campbell had been unable to offer a firm timetable in the days leading up to the announcement, and the club ultimately opted to make the IR designation official rather than continue waiting.

Pacheco signed with Detroit in March on a one-year deal worth roughly $1.81 million, arriving as a free agent after four seasons in Kansas City to serve as insurance behind three-time Pro Bowler Jahmyr Gibbs. The addition came shortly after the Lions traded veteran David Montgomery to Houston, leaving an open lane in the backfield rotation that Pacheco was expected to fill. Instead, his first season in Detroit is now on hold before it even started.

A Rough Camp Turns Into a Longer Absence

Pacheco’s path to Week 1 was complicated from the start. He missed extended time in training camp with a sprained MCL, an injury Campbell initially downplayed as manageable. But as Pacheco worked his way back, a back issue surfaced and quickly became the bigger concern. Campbell said as much last week, noting the knee was no longer the primary hurdle. Pacheco never appeared in a preseason game, including Detroit’s exhibition opener against Cincinnati, and the uncertainty around his back ultimately pushed the Lions to place him on IR rather than risk rushing him back.

With Pacheco unavailable, Detroit brought in free agent Kareem Hunt for a workout last week but stopped short of signing him. Instead, the Lions will lean on a trio of younger options behind Gibbs to open the season: Sione Vaki, Jacob Saylors, and Jabari Small. Saylors, who logged just two carries as a rookie in 2025, is now positioned as the primary backup for at least the next month. Rotowire projects an earliest return for Pacheco around Oct. 11, which would line up with Detroit’s Week 5 matchup against Arizona, followed immediately by the team’s Week 6 bye.

Pacheco spent his first four NFL seasons in Kansas City, where he won two Super Bowl titles and racked up 2,537 rushing yards and 14 touchdowns on 576 carries across 51 games. His 2023 season was his best, with 935 yards and seven scores, but injuries limited him each of the last two years — an ankle issue cost him nine games in 2024, and he finished 2025 with just 462 yards on 118 carries. Lions general manager Brad Holmes addressed the injury situation Wednesday, saying he remains hopeful Pacheco — along with defensive backs Kerby Joseph and Brian Branch, who are both also dealing with injuries — will return to play at some point this season, though he declined to give a specific timetable for any of them.

What This Means for Detroit’s Backfield Betting Markets

Pacheco’s injury removes any real threat to Jahmyr Gibbs’ workload for at least a month, reinforcing his standing as a true bell-cow back in Detroit’s offense. Gibbs is coming off a 2025 season in which he ran for 1,223 yards and 13 touchdowns on 243 carries while adding 616 receiving yards, and with Montgomery already traded and now Pacheco sidelined, the early-season touch share funnels almost entirely through him. Regular-season rushing touchdown props on Gibbs — which sat around the 11.5 mark with the over priced near -115 before this news — become that much more attractive for bettors, with Saylors, Vaki, and Small combining for a fraction of Detroit’s carries over the next four weeks.

The injury also arrives without shaking Detroit’s broader outlook much. The Lions’ regular-season win total has held steady near 10.5 across the offseason, and their Super Bowl odds remain in the same range they occupied a month ago, hovering in the high-teens-to-1 across most books. That stability suggests the market views Pacheco as a depth piece rather than a load-bearing part of Detroit’s contention case — but for anyone with exposure to Lions rushing props or Gibbs’ workload markets specifically, this is a clean, month-long runway for the workhorse back to pad his numbers before Detroit even has to think about integrating Pacheco back into the mix.