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Ameer Abdullah says he's healthy and hungry to put a disastrous 2016 season behind him.

(Mike Mulholland | MLive.com)

DETROIT -- There were 30 running backs selected in the NFL draft. That's nearly one a team -- and yet the Detroit Lions, who finished 30th in the league in rushing, didn't take any of them.

They didn't sign anybody in free agency, either, until adding undrafted rookie Tion Green.

It was a show of confidence in Ameer Abdullah -- that he's over the foot injury that limited him to two games last year. That he's better than LeGarrette Blount or anybody else that was available.

And Abdullah feels the exact same way, despite enduring the most frustrating season of his life.

"I don't really care what really happened, because I feel like I'm a better player than whoever they were going to bring in," Abdullah said Wednesday night during the Taste of the Lions event at Ford Field. "It didn't matter to me (that they didn't add anybody). That's just me being a player and a competitor. I didn't really care."

The comment might sound cocky on paper, but it didn't in real time. It wasn't hubris. It was real talk, from a player whose confidence hasn't wavered despite so many reasons to do so.

Abdullah missed almost all last offseason while recovering from shoulder surgery. Then his hot start to the season was over after just two games because of a foot injury.

He was good when he was out here, rushing for 101 yards on 18 carries and headlining a rotation that hit triple digits in both games. But the Lions fell apart without him, hitting triple digits in just one of the final 15 games.

Detroit was third in the league in yards per carry with Abdullah on the field. It plummeted to 27th without him.

That hurt, watching his team suffer without him. It was a new feeling for a player who had never missed a game in his life due to injury, and he still hasn't shaken it.

"Sometimes you need to miss the game to realize how much you love it," Abdullah said. "I've always been passionate about this game, but missing last year was huge for me. I've had a lot of time to sit down and think and watch a lot of football, and a lot of times, I was depressed, just not being out there with my teammates. Feeling like I let them down, even though it was something out of my control. Felt like I let a lot of people down because I wasn't out there.

"And anytime you feel like that, you know you really love this game. So, having the opportunity to come back, OTAs coming up pretty soon, that's huge for me. I'm not taking anything for granted."

Abdullah says he's still working his way back, but the injury has felt 100 percent healed since late February or early March. He's expected to participate when OTAs begin Tuesday, and he should have no issue being ready for the start of training camp.

Detroit had better hope so, too, because without any notable additions, Abdullah is its best hope at finally climbing out of the gutter on the ground. The Lions haven't finished better than 28th in rushing since Jim Caldwell's arrival in 2014, and hasn't sniffed the top 10 since 1998.

"I feel like for me, personally, I got a lot that I want to achieve -- a lot I left out there last year, that could have been," Abdullah said. "But this year, I'm really attacking things with a more focused mind-set to get everything done."