ALLEN PARK >> Scottie Montgomery was being pulled in two directions this offseason.

On one hand, the Detroit Lions assistant head coach wanted to get back involved with the passing game. That’s where he’s comfortable. He played receiver at Duke in the late 1990s and enjoyed a four-year NFL career before he transitioned into coaching the position at his alma mater in 2006.

On the other, Montgomery developed an incredibly deep bond with running backs Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery. He was hired to be Detroit’s running backs coach in 2023, and the Gibbs-Montgomery tandem has developed into arguably the league’s best duo under his watch.

Montgomery opted to move to coaching receivers, replacing Antwaan Randle El, who followed former offensive coordinator Ben Johnson to the Chicago Bears. It wasn’t an easy decision, but, as Montgomery put it, “It was just one of those situations that I thought it was time.”

“I thought that room was developed, that room had kind of grown and there was opportunities for other people,” Montgomery said of the running backs he used to coach. “I also wanted to get back to hone the skills of the passing game and how that works — even though I was already thrown into it (with the running backs), it’s just a little bit different when you’re in the wideout room.”

Montgomery, after helping Detroit’s running backs find great success — Gibbs and David Montgomery combined for 3,045 yards from scrimmage and 32 total touchdowns last season — will now look to have a similar effect on the team’s receivers.

There’s no shortage of talent at the position, with All-Pro Amon-Ra St. Brown and vertical threat Jameson Williams leading the way. Veterans like Tom Kennedy, Tim Patrick, Kalif Raymond and Malik Taylor are available, too, and young pieces such as Ronnie Bell, Jakobie Keeney-James, Dominic Lovett, Jackson Meeks and Isaac TeSlaa have potential ready to be tapped.

“I like Coach Scottie. I feel like he’s a very down-to-earth person,” Lovett, a seventh-round pick in April’s draft, said during rookie minicamp. “He has multiple relationships (with you).

“He has one with you off the field and one with you when it’s time to handle business. … I’m just taking in as much knowledge as I can from him.”

Coaching running backs allowed Montgomery to better appreciate the whole operation of an offense. A receiver can sometimes feel like he’s isolated, Montgomery explained, unaware of how the timing of his route effects a running back who’s in pass protection. If the play is designed for the quarterback to take a three-step drop and fire the ball — and Gibbs is tasked with slowing down a 250-pound blitzing linebacker — the receiver needs to be in the right spot at the right time.

A poorly run route could lead to hesitation from the quarterback, resulting in the linebacker getting through.

Montgomery noted how receivers can pay their running backs back for quality pass blocking:

“When you saw Jahmyr (or) you saw David with those monster runs — but if you also looked in the background — you saw Jamo leading it (as a blocker), you saw Saint knocking somebody out, you saw something going on from the receiver position,” he said.

Montgomery has already seen the difference in leadership style between a couple of veterans, in David Montgomery and St. Brown.

The former “goes at the young guys really, really quickly,” while the latter takes a more soft-spoken approach.

But as for what else he’s discovered about how the personalities at receiver compare to those at running back, he’s still learning.

“Ask me in five or six weeks,” Montgomery said.