Sione Vaki Can Do Everything. It's up to the Lions to Use Him Right
The Detroit Lions newest running back is a weapon, but like every weapon, he needs to be used correctly
In September, the Utah Utes coaching staff sat down with Sione Vaki for a meeting that would change the course of his football career. The Utes, a top 15 team and popular dark horse candidate to win the PAC 12 and go to their first ever College Football Playoff, were in the midst of an injury crisis. Star quarterback Cam Rising was out, and it was looking like he’d miss the whole season. Micah Bernard, one of the Utes leading running backs, was ruled out for the season after suffering an injury in an accident of some sort.
Utah’s offense needed more firepower. Despite an impressive 5-1 start to the season that included wins against a ranked UCLA team, Florida and Baylor, things were looking uncertain.
To fill this void, the Utes’ coaching staff looked to an interesting place — the defensive backs room. A year earlier, when they were also struggling with a lack of available skill players due to a string of injuries, the staff had identified Vaki, a safety, as a player who could go both ways.
“Coach [Kyle] Winningham in a staff meeting [asked] ‘is there anyone that we're missing that could help out as a running back?’ Morgan Scalley, the Utes’ defensive coordinator who has remained at the program since he featured as a defensive back for the team as a player in 2001, told Bird’s Eye Football about a meeting in 2022. “I said ‘well, I've got Sione who played primarily offense in high school and I think he could be a heck of a running back.”
Utah would end up moving Ja’Quinden Jackson, a backup quarterback, to running back that year. He would run away with the role, leading the team in rushing for the next two seasons. And while Vaki would unknowingly be passed on as an emergency running back, he would emerge as a real talent at nickel for the Utes.
But when crisis struck again in 2023, Utah already knew who to tap at running back.
“It was a crazy story. I had just walked into the facility and one of the [staff members]... reminded me when I got there that I would be with the offense,” Vaki told Lions media about finding out he would start practicing with the offense.
“He was a little bit hesitant because he didn't want it to affect his play as a safety,” Scalley said about when Vaki was told he would start taking snaps on offense.
Utah’s coaching staff had no doubt that he could succeed at the role, though.
“In terms of his ability to do… there was never any doubt,” Scalley added.
And it did not take long for Vaki to reward their faith in him. In Week 5, the Utes hosted the Cal Golden Bears, and the safety-turned-running back exploded for 158 yards and two touchdowns on 15 carries. He was unstoppable, especially coming out of the wildcat. Utah romped Cal 34-14, with Vaki capping off his day with a 72-yard touchdown rush in the fourth quarter.
Cal is, no offense to any Golden Bears fans out there, a minnow in the PAC 12. A week later the Vaki-experiment would face a major test, traveling to the Coliseum to take on Caleb Williams and the highly-touted USC Trojans in a massive top 20 match-up.
Vaki would leave his imprint on the game almost immediately, catching a pass on a wheel route and taking it 53 yards to the house on the game’s opening drive. A wide receiver in high school, Vaki caught another touchdown pass later in the game and totaled 217 yards from scrimmage as the Utes won a nail-biter against their Pac 12 rival.
He remained a two-way player for the Utes all season. Impressing just as much as a safety as he did a receiver for Utah. After just two years in college football he chose to go pro — wanting to continue his career as a defensive back.
But then on day 3, he heard his name called by the Detroit Lions. Not a team that would want him to play nickel, but instead to feature in the NFL in a role he had just learned seven months ago.
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“The Tongan Nightmare”, as Vaki was named by local news when he played at Liberty High School in Brentwood, California, was the best player on one of the Golden State’s best teams.
He featured as a receiver, dominating both catching passes and rushing out of the backfield. Like many star high school athletes, he also played both ways, featuring as a defensive back for the Liberty Lions.
“He’s the heart and soul, and the passion behind how we play,” Ryan Partridge, Vaki’s high school head coach, told local news in 2019. “He’s a great leader, a great role model for all our players… we like to follow his lead.”
Vaki would later credit his high school success to Najee Harris, the Pittsburgh Steelers running back whose path he crossed at Liberty.
“That guy didn’t know how to stop working,” he would tell local news in Utah. “The coaches had to kick him out of the facilities at times, kick him out of the weight room. The biggest example was hard work from him and just relying on what you can do, putting your head down and grinding.”
The Tongan Nightmare’s signature celebration was a point into the sky, honoring his mother who died of liver cancer in his junior year of high school.
“I was her baby, I was her favorite,” the youngest child of 11 told local news during his senior year of high school.
A Mormon by birth, Vaki spent two years on a mission after high school, feeling the journey was especially important to him after his mother’s death. Doing so pushed back his college career, though. Utah, a team for which recruiting players set to go on missions is a regular part of their process, was a perfect match. Scalley said that he himself went on a mission before playing for the Utes back in the early 2000s.
It seemed like the plan for Vaki coming out of Liberty was up-in-the-air. Scalley said that they saw him as a defensive back, and did not plan on using him both ways. Vaki, like many freshmen, had a lot still to learn, though. He started the year on the fringes of the depth chart, but quickly moved his way into playing time.
But once he did get a shot, he impressed. Fittingly, his breakout at the safety position also came against USC, a year before his massive game against them at running back. The Utes’ defense was getting blown up by Williams and the 12th ranked Trojans in the first half of their 2022 game. Wanting to change things up, Vaki was inserted for the second half. He never looked back.
“He immediately showed physicality and closing speed,” Scalley said. “The more we went on, the more I was like, ‘Okay, this kid's a special football player’. The future is really bright.”
Utah would go on to win that game 43-42. For the rest of the year, their base defense shifted to a three safety look as there was no way coaches could leave him on the bench anymore.
Detroit, by all accounts, plans to use Vaki as a running back. It is what they officially list him as, and he took part in running back drills at both rookie camp and OTAs. To my understanding, he has not worked with the defensive backs room at all. Scalley — a defensive back himself who will obviously lean towards the position — said Vaki being a running back at the next level “was something I thought was in the realm of possibility” when they first asked him to play both ways last season.
Vaki himself indicated in interviews pre-draft that he planned to play safety at the next level, though remained open to both. Draft analysts such as NFL Network’s legendary Lance Zierlien wrote in the months leading up to his selection that they did not see him as an NFL running back. By all accounts, Vaki seemed destined to be a safety at the next level.
It makes the Lions choice to use Vaki at running back interesting, and almost confusing. The team has a real need at safety and nickel. If Brian Branch goes down with an injury then the secondary will be in crisis. The selection of the Utah safety makes perfect sense… until you try to put him at running back.
If there is one position Detroit does not need more depth at, it's running back. Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery form the best running back tandem in the NFL. Beyond them, the Lions have filled the back-half of the roster with gems such as Craig Reynolds and Zonovan Knight. Day three picks can be expendable, but trading up to select a running back in the fourth round felt like a puzzling decision considering the current make-up of the roster. Of course, Brad Holmes is a strong adherent to the “best player available” mantra, instead of drafting for need. But if Vaki is a running back, then was he the best player available?
At 5’11, Vaki is taller than the Lions two main running backs playing a position where having a lower center of gravity and great contact balance are important skills. A player with a strong upper body but bad lower body balance has the opposite build of what you want. Vaki is not very fast, and even on his 72-yard touchdown run against the Golden Bears you can see his lack of true long speed. Even in coverage, he struggled against the PAC 12’s faster slot receivers.
His greatest traits are his coverage instincts and sound tackling ability. Vaki tackles like he’s in a training video. He squares his body, keeps his head up, and drives down ball carriers. The safety rarely misses tackles, and avoids the Madden-like launches into a tackle that so many safeties (Will Harris, for example) are prone to. Combine that with his ability to read the game as it occurs in front of him, and he is often perfectly placed to plug holes and make stops in the short field. He makes up for his lack of speed by just being in the right place from the start.
While good instincts can help someone anywhere on the field, it is unclear if his best traits truly have value at running back. Vaki’s running back film has obvious red flags. His nickel film shows a genuinely great player who, while flawed, could play a role on an NFL defense.
The jump from college to the pros is tough. It makes sense that the Lions will have him focus on just one position this offseason. Just learning one job can be hard enough, let alone two. But one has to question how running back became the role they had in mind for him, and if it is, why they spent valuable draft capital to nab him. Is Vaki, an unathletic RB3 at best, worth picks 164, 201 and a future fourth (Detroit also received a sixth round pick back in the trade with the Eagles, that became guard Christian Mahogany)?
Where Vaki may truly have value is special teams. The youngster has already received praise for his impressive work defending kick returns in rookie camp. While his explosiveness and vision as a running back does allow him to compete for the role as kick returner with the newly changed rules, the Lions will likely want someone with more speed in that spot.
Is Detroit’s vision for Vaki to be a punt gunner? And if so, is that a waste of his immense defensive talent?
“Wherever they need me I’m ready to go,” Vaki told reporters at rookie camp.
Scalley described Vaki as a kid who is humble and always willing to learn. Someone who soaks up knowledge from wherever he can get it. That evaluation seems to match Vaki so far this offseason.
The running back seems to fit the Lions culture of hard working, hard nosed, physical, football players perfectly. He is a student of the game, mentioning in his rookie camp availability that reps against first round pick Terrion Arnold would make him a better player in the long run.
After receiving praise from reporters at camp, he replied with “I definitely gotta get better, get back in the film room, and learn all the details to the game.”
Like he did for the Utes, he has also shown a willingness to line-up where Detroit needs him. Whether the Lions actually line him up where he can be most useful isn’t up to him, though.