Getty Bo Scarbrough runs against the Redskins in 2019.
The Detroit Lions have a talented running back in Bo Scarbrough on the roster, and it’s not just because of what he can do on the football field.
Scarborough, the former Alabama running back, is pushing forward with his NFL dream but it hasn’t delayed him from trying to accomplish his other dreams of getting involved in the FBI and working there one day.
Recently, ESPN’s Michael Rothstein profiled Scarbrough, who is attempting to make that dream reality by finishing school. Scarbrough is passionately chasing the dream in Alabama and spoke about what he loved about helping folks with forensic evidence. As he said, it’s a dream he had developed at a young age while watching television and pondering his future.
Here’s a look at what Rothstein wrote:
“It started with a television show. Scarbrough was 12 or 13 years old — he’s not entirely sure — when he found “Forensic Files,” a cable show with 406 episodes explaining how forensic science was used to solve crimes, accidents and illness.
Scarbrough wanted to become a professional athlete, like many boys his age, but this show piqued his investigative interest. Each episode, he tried to solve the mystery before the half-hour was over.
As he went through high school and then started college, the same thought stuck. He wanted to do this — not work with a police department, but “in an agency” like the FBI or Homeland Security. Maybe he’d become a criminal profiler. He calls the idea “my passion.”
“I like hands-on and like to be out in the field,” Scarbrough said. “I like to help people and I’m caring. I just figured that it would be the right thing for me. That it would be comfortable for me.”
The piece details how the running back has remained focused on his education during the pandemic. Scarbrough will graduate this summer and could walk later in 2021 once the coronavirus has gotten more under control. It would be excellent to see him live out this dream and begin to help people, but only after he is done helping the Detroit rushing attack over the hump, of course.
Bo Scarbrough Stats
How did Scarbrough get to the NFL? Working in a major tandem backfield with the Crimson Tide, Scarbrough was a seventh round pick of the Dallas Cowboys in 2018. After being released in Dallas, Scarborough played for the Jacksonville Jaguars and Seattle Seahawks, a place he stuck until 2019, when he was released as part of final roster cuts in late August. Thus far in his career, Scarborough hasn’t registered an NFL statistic to this point in his career.
As a member of the Crimson Tide, Scarbrough was a solid running back. He accounted for 1,512 yards and 20 touchdowns with Alabama, and was the MVP of the Peach Bowl in 2016. While Scarbrough never made an impact in the NFL thus far, he will likely never have a better chance to break through in the league than the one he might get in Detroit.
The Lions ground game was in bad shape given injury and inconsistency in 2019, and it will be interesting to see if Scarbrough sticks on the roster and is able to remain solid given what the team has added in a healthy Kerryon Johnson and D’Andre Swift.
Bo Scarbrough’s Future With Lions
In essentially what might have been a job audition for 2020, Scarbrough managed to make a big impression early on for the Lions, which is something that fans were very happy to see.
So far, the Lions have taken a step forward with Scarbrough in the mix, and it would not be a surprise to see him get the call multiple times in the months ahead, even as the Lions drafted Swift from Georgia this year. He’s got the style and the right mindset in order to become a fixture in the backfield.
While it might seem premature to declare this after one half a season of work, so rarely do running backs make the kind of fast impression Scarbrough did. As a result, that should leave him firmly in the mix for 2020.
Perhaps Scarbrough’s excellent post-football dreams of working in the FBI will have to wait if he can cement a role in the Detroit backfield.
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