a TE7 per-game rate in a loaded Detroit offense before a season-ending herniated disc, priced TE8. Fair for the production; the back surgery is the genuine unknown on either side.
Sam LaPorta 2026 Season Preview — an elite role, a back surgery
Show notes & transcript▾
Sam LaPorta was on his way to another strong tight-end season when a herniated disc ended his year on the operating table. Healthy, he's a top-tier target in a great offense; coming off back surgery, he's a question. He's the eighth tight end off the board. The Muffed 2026 preview.
The 2025 season was a strong-but-short nine games: forty catches for four hundred eighty-nine yards and three touchdowns, eleven-nine a game, the number-seven tight end per game before a Week 10 back injury required surgery and ended his season. The signature was a six-catch, ninety-seven-yard, one-score day against Minnesota in Week 9, right before the injury. A reliable, productive role cut short.
The arc is a strong rookie year and a settling since: fourteen-one a game as a rookie — a top-tight-end season — then ten-nine and eleven-nine. He's plateaued into a solid TE1, a step below his debut but firmly useful.
What the data says: the role is real and his touchdown rate is low, a positive-regression note, but the production has settled into the TE7-to-TE8 range his price reflects. There's no big edge in the numbers — the swing factor is entirely the back.
The situation, per the reports, is the uncertainty: LaPorta had surgery on a herniated disc and is hoped to be ready by training camp, but the team itself acknowledges back injuries carry recovery uncertainty, and his free-agent year now hinges on proving health. He plays in a loaded Detroit offense — Goff, Amon-Ra, Jameson Williams, Gibbs — which both floors his quality and caps his target ceiling.
The price: pick ninety-five and a half, the eighth tight end. Verdict: WATCHLIST — priced about at his recent production, with a back surgery as the genuine unknown on either side. The counter for him: a proven top-eight tight end in a great offense, with low-touchdown upside, is fine value at TE8 if the back holds. Against: back injuries are unpredictable, and Detroit spreads the ball. Fair price, real health question.
September watch: the back — availability and whether the explosiveness returns; and the target share in a crowded Detroit offense. Your guys, every week. Next preview's queued.
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2025: 40 catches for 489 yards, 3 TDs on 49 targets (9 games)
More episodes
2025 ReviewMay 11, 2026Sam LaPorta 2025 Season in Review
TE27 on the season — 9 games, 11.9 PPR/game
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Sam LaPorta 2025 Season in Review
TE27 on the season — 9 games, 11.9 PPR/game
Show notes & transcript
Sam LaPorta finished 2025 as the number 27 tight end in total PPR scoring — but the number 7 tight end in PPR per game among players with at least six games. That gap tells the whole story: when LaPorta was on the field, he was a top-tier fantasy tight end. He just only played nine games. This was an availability-shortened year on top of a healthy usage profile in a top-five passing offense, and the per-game rate confirms the talent never left. LaPorta's 2025 isn't decline — it's nine missed weeks that gutted the total line while the rate stats stayed loud.
Now let's dig into the numbers. Across those nine games, LaPorta caught 40 balls on 49 targets for 489 yards and 3 touchdowns — an 82 percent catch rate on a 19 percent target share, a genuine featured-pass-catcher workload in an offense where Amon-Ra St. Brown saw 172 targets. He averaged 11.9 PPR per game, but the tell is the variance: this was boom-or-bust, not steady floor. Four games above 13 PPR, including a 21.7-point peak against the Vikings and a 20.2-point game in Cincinnati — paired with floor games of 4.5, 5.6, and 6.9. When Jared Goff and the passing game leaned tight end, LaPorta smashed. When the script went elsewhere, he disappeared. The touchdown ecosystem was there too — the Lions ranked fifth in red-zone touchdown rate at 69.6 percent and Goff threw 34 touchdowns, second in the league. LaPorta got 3 of them. That's the single biggest drag on the total-points ranking.
The play that captures the per-game upside came in week 9 against Minnesota. Fourth and four from the Vikings' 40, scoreless first quarter, and Goff went deep middle to LaPorta out of the shotgun — 40-yard touchdown. Twenty in the air, twenty after the catch, on a converted fourth down. That's the LaPorta archetype in one snap: trusted on a high-leverage down, used as a real vertical threat from the tight end spot, finishing in the end zone. When he was healthy and the plan involved him, Detroit wasn't using him as a checkdown. They were using him as a weapon — and the per-game ranking reflects exactly that.
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