It’s sacrilege to call any NFL running back “Barry Sanders-esque,” regardless of whether he plays for the Detroit Lions or any other team. There is – and will only be one – Barry Sanders.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuut… it’s pretty hard to deny the similarity of this one particular play from the Lions’ 52-6 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars.

On the play, Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs is a yard away from the goal line, but he encounters heavy traffic on what should have been a relatively easy run up the middle. He can escape the crashing defenders with a clever turning move. Then he simply uses his 4.36 40 yard speed to beat every defender all the way to the corner of the end zone for the score.

Now let’s go back to 1991. Sanders and the 11-4 Lions versus the 13-2 Buffalo Bills. The Lions trail 7-0 early in the fourth quarter and need to win this game to reach the NFC Central and earn a first-round bye. After being denied first down from the 1-yard line, the Lions went right back to Sanders. And even though it looked like he was about to be stopped in the backfield, he executed an even cleaner spin move to find daylight on the sideline. You can watch the piece at 1:47:55 of this historic YouTube video.

The Lions would win the game in overtime, win the division and reach the NFC Championship game.

Now let’s take a look at Gibbs and Sanders’ plays side-by-side, as combined by the Lions social media team:

It’s not a perfect one-to-one comparison, but as I said at the top, there is no comparison to Sanders. Anyway, it’s a cool moment and the GOAT himself approved: