Sam LaPorta

LaPorta took a step back after his outstanding rookie season, dipping from 86 catches for 889 yards and 10 touchdowns in 2023 (on 120 targets) to 60 catches for 726 yards and seven TDs in 2024 (83 targets). There’s plenty of success to go around on a Lions offense that led the NFL with 33.2 points per game last season, but RBs Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery tend to eat first, and Amon-Ra St. Brown is still the top pass catcher. That makes it tough to project big-time volume for LaPorta or Jameson Williams, who broke out in 2024 with his first 1,000-yard season while getting only eight more targets than LaPorta. The tight end did improve later in the season after a slow start, scoring double-digit PPR points in his final seven games (including playoffs) and recording six or more targets in each of his last nine. LaPorta’s 17 TDs since he came into the league are tied for the most among TEs over that span, and his 20 red-zone targets in 2024 were fifth most at the position, so he should keep scoring plenty of TDs under new offensive coordinator John Morton. The question is whether LaPorta can also match his target volume from 2023 and the latter part of 2024, rather than slumping to a lesser role like he did for the first half of last season (3.6 targets per game). Read Past Outlooks