Detroit LionsOur read
Written Sun 12:01 am Central, for week 6
LaPorta sits out week 6 of 2026 entirely, the Lions are on their bye, so he scores nothing this week no matter where you slot him. There's no injury concern to weigh, no designation on Sunday's report, and he still runs first among Detroit tight ends with Brock Wright and Tyler Conklin behind him. His next game is week 7 at home against the Packers, a 3:25 pm Central kickoff. Keep him on the roster and cover the week with a fill-in at tight end.
Written Oct 17, from his facts through last season
Fifteen points a game through week 5 of 2026, three touchdowns, 37 targets. That is the tight end you hoped for when drafters took him at 101.7 before the season, and the week 3 dud of 7.4 looks like noise next to the 22.4 and 19.8 he put up in weeks 4 and 5 of 2026.
The usage backs the scoring. He is getting 13% of his team's red-zone carries and targets in his games this year, TE7 among 23 tight ends with 20 or more of their own, after last season's 12.2% of his own touches there left him TE79 among 126. In 2025 he still played 90.4% of snaps, TE3, so the route volume was never the problem. The end-zone work arriving now is what lifts him. He is also getting 3.7 yards of separation on 33 tracked targets, TE5 among 18 tight ends with 15 or more tracked targets, weeks 1, 2, 4 and 5 of 2026 only.
The one real worry is durability, and it is not a small one. An injury shut him down for the back half of 2025, eight straight games gone from a year that was working, 11.9 points a game over his nine appearances before it hit. That is why our preseason number of 141 points came off 14 expected games rather than 17. Nothing in this season's reports suggests a repeat, and he has played all five weeks, but the range bottoms out lower than most because of it. Even so, at TE11 on our board and in a tier with six players before a 9.0-point drop behind it, we would hold him through the week 6 of 2026 bye and start him the rest of the way.