Inside the Detroit Lions: Sam LaPorta chasing historic rookie season, 2024 schedule nugget

NEW ORLEANS – Sam LaPorta has a chance to make NFL history.

LaPorta, the Detroit Lions’ stellar rookie tight end, had a career game Sunday, catching nine passes for 140 yards and a touchdown in the team’s 33-28 win over the New Orleans Saints.

LaPorta joined a small and mostly illustrious group of players – Justin Jefferson, Odell Beckham Jr., Anquan Boldin and Marques Colston – who have at least 60 catches, 675 yards receiving and six touchdowns in the first 12 games of their NFL careers. He enters the Lions’ final five games with a shot to break Mike Ditka’s 62-year-old rookie tight end receiving record.

Ditka, the Hall of Fame tight end and legendary Chicago Bears coach, redefined the position when he entered the NFL in 1961. He had 1,076 yards and 12 touchdowns on 56 catches, a mark that remarkably has stood for more than six decades despite the evolution of the passing game and expansion of the NFL schedule.

Ditka played in a 14-game season; the NFL expanded to 16 games in 1978 and 17 in 2021.

LaPorta, a second-round pick out of Iowa, is highly unlikely to have anywhere near the evolutionary or cultural impact as Ditka, the one-time face of Da Bears. Yet he’s on pace to catch 91 passes for 961 yards and nine touchdowns, an eye-popping statistical line at one of the most difficult positions for a rookie to play in the NFL.

“He’s just efficient, consistent, catches the ball when it comes to him. And he can get a little YAC, he can keep it moving,” Lions guard Jonah Jackson said. “He’s special. He’s still young. I think he’s only 22. It’s just crazy, we have a lot of freakshows that are under 25 and it’s just nuts.”

LaPorta doesn’t have Jameson Williams’ speed, Amon-Ra St. Brown’s hands or Jahmyr Gibbs’ burst, but he’s not lacking in any of those areas and he wins with a mix of poise and precision rare for rookies.

On Sunday, he caught all nine of the targets thrown his way – five for first downs – and made three of the game’s biggest catches.

He found a crevice in the Saints defense for a 13-yard touchdown on the third play of the game’s third possession to keep the Lions from squandering the field position they got after Derek Carr’s interception.

He slipped behind the Saints secondary for a key 48-yard catch late in the third quarter, a play that was set up both by offensive coordinator Ben Johnson’s creative use of personnel (with Gibbs and David Montgomery both on the field together) and LaPorta’s own willingness to block.

And he helped ice the game with a 10-yard catch on a third-and-7 slant against with 2:48 to play and the Lions trying to run out the clock.

LaPorta also made the key block (with an assist from Jared Goff) on Williams’ 19-yard touchdown run early in the fourth quarter, and his dual-threat ability is part of his magic and what makes his accomplishments more impressive.

Historically, rookie tight ends have struggled to balance all that’s asked of them in the run and pass game. They have to be an extension of the offensive line and an outlet for their quarterbacks, and there aren’t many that can perform both those roles at a high level in their first year.

LaPorta hasn’t been perfect this season. He had a false start penalty Sunday that led to a stalled drive, he has five drops in 12 games, according to Pro Football Reference, and has had minimal production against some of the best linebacker units he has faced (Baltimore Ravens and Tampa Bay Buccaneers).

But he’s quickly become Goff’s second favorite target behind St. Brown, and someone the team, his coach and quarterback can lean on in important situations.

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“(I am) as comfortable (with him) as anyone I’ve played with and for a rookie, it's pretty, pretty tremendous,” Goff said. “I mean, I'd compare him directly to what St. Brown was doing as a rookie as far as on the field and off the field and type of pro he is and knowing his assignments. Rarely has an MA (missed assignment), rarely has a rookie mistake. Very rarely. It's just such a reliable guy and a guy that I count on in those crunch times and I know he's a clutch player.”

LaPorta already has the ninth most receiving yards by a rookie tight end in NFL history, according to StatMuse, and he’ll tie Hall of Famer John Mackey (and Raymond Chester) for third on the rookie tight end TD list with his next touchdown.

Besides Ditka, Kyle Pitts is the only rookie tight end in NFL history to top 1,000 yards receiving, and no other tight end has had even 750 yards in his first season since Jeremy Shockey in 2002.

That’s fair warning that LaPorta might not sustain this type of production; Pitts, the No. 4 pick of the 2021 draft, has 848 yards the past two seasons combined, and has mysteriously disappeared from coach Arthur Smith’s offense with the Atlanta Falcons.

But the Lions have found themselves a keeper at tight end, one with no interest yet in basking in his accomplishments.

“You don’t want to get caught up in all that,” he said. “It just kind of muddies or clouds your vision for the team and the success we hope to have moving forward. I think I’m surrounded by a lot of great people. Great teammates, great coaches, great support with my family and friends. So they just tell me to do what I love. I love playing football. It's not a chore, it doesn't really feel like a job. You're just out there with your buddies running around. It's great that we're having success. It definitely helps and makes you want to work harder when you're having success and adding value to the team.”

Three more thoughts on the Lions with roughly three quarters of the season in the books:

Class in session

LaPorta isn’t the only standout in what looks to be a stellar Lions rookie class.

Gibbs continues to play a huge role in the Lions game plan, and has the look of the Lions’ version of Alvin Kamara (who set the Saints’ career rushing touchdown record Sunday). Jack Campbell is coming off his best game of the year – and his first start at his natural middle linebacker position. Brian Branch made a phenomenal one-handed interception of Carr and already is the Lions’ best defensive playmaker. And Lions coach Dan Campbell made an ear-catching statement when asked about third-round pick Hendon Hooker last week.

“We’re just in the beginning stages of it, but he’s – you can see just when he throws the ball, why we acquired him,” Campbell said. “He’s got a poise about him and he’s got a really smooth delivery if you will. Tight spiral.”

I expect the Lions to try and extend Goff this offseason, but if Hooker develops into a serviceable NFL starter, he could flip the Lions’ draft class from good to great.

There's always a but ...

The win was nice, but it more obscured than erased the issues that have plagued the Lions since the bye.

Give the Lions credit for being opportunistic, but the Saints were largely to blame for both of their turnovers, and Carr rebounded from a slow start to complete 16 of his final 17 passes and did not throw an incompletion in the second half.

Carr left on New Orleans’ penultimate series with injuries. His replacement, Jameis Winston, threw three straight off-target passes on the final drive – two to open receivers – to give the ball back to the Lions.

The Lions are thin in the secondary and light on pass rush, and I’m not sure the defense has the goods right now to stop the NFC’s best teams, the San Francisco 49ers and Philadelphia Eagles.

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Schedule in advance

The Eagles (10-2) made it through most of the murderer’s row portion of their schedule unfazed – they played the Dallas Cowboys, Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills in successive games, before losing to the 49ers on Sunday, and have another showdown with the Cowboys this week.

The 49ers are in the midst of a late-season stretch of games against the Seattle Seahawks, Eagles, Seahawks again and Ravens, with a break of a road trip to the Arizona Cardinals mixed in.

And the Chiefs’ November-and-beyond schedule includes games against Eagles, Bills, Miami Dolphins, Green Bay Packers and Cincinnati Bengals, who were expected to contend for the AFC crown before Joe Burrow’s season-ending injury.

That’s the type of late-season gauntlet the Lions could face next season, as the NFL typically backloads potentially meaningful games late in the season for its top playoff contenders.

The Lions were fortunate to play the NFC South, the worst division in the NFL, this season, and the NFC North isn’t good either. Next year, the schedule gets tougher with home games against the Seahawks, Jacksonville Jaguars and AFC East winner (likely the Dolphins), and road trips to the 49ers, Houston Texans and NFC East winner (likely the Eagles).

Expect many of those games to be in the season’s final two months.

Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him @davebirkett.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Lions' Sam LaPorta chasing history: 62-year-old record near