Sione Vaki was one of the Detroit Lions’ most unconventional picks of the 2024 NFL Draft. The team traded a fifth, sixth, and future fourth-round pick to get in return the fourth-round pick they used on Vaki and an additional sixth-round pick in return.
What was unconventional is that they used those resources to grab Vaki—who played mostly safety at Utah—and draft him as a running back. But the more we hear from the Lions about their drafting process, the more it becomes clear why they’re optimistic about Vaki’s chances at making an impact with the team.
Vaki played as the Utes’ emergency running back for a six-game stretch to close out the 2023 season. Vaki was able to turn those six games into 317 yards rushing on just 42 carries while finding the end zone twice on the ground. He also displayed his receiving acumen (he was a slot receiver in high school) hauling in 11 catches for 203 yards and three touchdowns. That tape quickly caught Lions general manager Brad Holmes’ eyes.
“He looks so natural as a runner,” Holmes said on draft night. “I was like, ‘Wait, where did these backyard instincts of his come from of just him running the ball and making these plays?’ Not only does he have these instincts that are (more) natural (than) we thought, he’s not even majoring in it.”
But what really sold the deal for Lions running backs coach/assistant head coach Scottie Montgomery were the two meetings he had with Vaki in the pre-draft process. Not only did the young running back display all the grit and toughness that has come to define the Dan Campbell Detroit Lions, but he displayed both incredible intelligence and an insatiable curiosity.
In the first meeting, Montgomery peppered Vaki with a ton of information about how the Lions use their running backs. This was intentional. He was trying to overload the kid with information. Vaki, having very little experience at the running back position, was honest. He admitted he didn’t know most of the material being thrown at him. But at the end of the meeting, Vaki was able to reproduce all of that information.
“What we gave him, he was able to regurgitate really quickly,” Montgomery said.
It was the second meeting—a “top-30” visit in Detroit— that really sealed the deal for Montgomery. Vaki came to the meeting having done an incredible amount of research on the Lions offense. He wasn’t about to go into this meeting feeling overburdened.
“When he came into the building, he had maybe watched all of our tape, just about 80 percent of our schemes, and he had personally drew all of them out vs. different coverages, vs. different fronts,” Montgomery said. “He didn’t know the name of it, he just knew the technical name of it. So when he sat down, he had this folder, and he just started opening it and flipped it and said, ‘Coach you guys run this, right? Okay, yeah, against Las Vegas. Okay, that was against…’ It just was… it was refreshing to see an old school mentality of just doing the work. Not having anybody else do it for you. You have it all drawn out the way that it needs to be drawn out. And then preparing for those visits in that way. So that was impressive.”
The Lions knew right then and there that if they planned on moving Vaki to running back, he was going to do everything in his power to learn the position. They had their guy.
Vaki has only been with the team for a month, but in the practices that have been open to the public he has repped exclusively at running back. And, unsurprisingly, the biggest improvements the Lions have already seen in his game are the mental aspects.
“He just understands, ‘Okay, here’s what we’re doing here, here’s why we’re doing it, and this is how it fits into the schematic hole for our football club,’” Montgomery said. “So everything that he learns every day, he has it. He’s been as good as most guys that we see from a rookie standpoint, from a mental error standpoint. The fundamentals piece (of the position) we’ve still got to go a little ways, but mental error-wise, he’s been really good.”
