Former 7th-round pick could shock everyone and find himself in a key role on the Lions 53-man roster for the first time

There is no question that coming into Detroit Lions' training camp, one of the biggest battles we've been wanting to see was at running back. Obviously the team is set with Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery, but that third spot is a key spot and there are some really talented players vying for it.

There's the incumbent Craig Reynolds, the young guy with upside in Zonovan Knight and the rookie Sione Vaki. That's who we expected to be fighting for this third spot. But then one of Brad Holmes' first draft picks decided that he was going to come in and make an impact this year. We're talking about Jermar Jefferson.

The Lions took Jefferson in the seventh-round of the 2021 NFL Draft and he's been here ever since. There was a short period of time when he was waived with an injury settlement, but the Lions brought him right back once he was healthy. Apart from a solid performance against the Steelers in 2021, we haven't seen a lot out of Jefferson. It was expected that he would no doubt be cut this year and that a change of scenery might be a good thing for him.

But he's not having that. He's had a good camp so far and even got a shoutout from Lions' head coach Dan Campbell on Monday.

"Certainly the running back position, behind David (Montgomery) and Gibbs is, that whole thing is sorting out. That's a good competition that we've got going on. Look, Jefferson's had a good week, you know. Certainly we know what Craig is, he's as steady as they come."

Jefferson still feels like he has an uphill battle with Reynolds holding a lot of the coaching trust and Vaki being someone that the team traded up for. Knight can certainly still show some stuff out there too. But if Jefferson can keep stacking good weeks and then put up good preseason performances, anything is possible. Nobody is locked into a third or fourth spot right now outside of Vaki, who is also been having a really good camp.

There's something about Brad Holmes' draft picks hitting in that third or fourth year. We've seen it with Derrick Barnes and Ifeatu Melifonwu. Are we about to see it with Jefferson?

Related: The biggest takeaway from the first week of Lions' training camp was that Brad Holmes made a big mistake and still has time to correct it