The Week 10 game against the Washington Commanders being a blowout provided an easy explanation for why he played a season-low snap share, but then Detroit Lions tight end Sam LaPorta landed on the first practice report of the week with a back issue.
Three misses practices later, LaPorta was ruled out for Week 11 against the Philadelphia Eagles. Then, the day before the game, things escalated further when he was placed on IR. So the Eagles game would be the first of a mininum four games without LaPorta
The Lions proved how much they value No. 2 tight end Brock Wright when they matched the offer sheet the San Francisco 49ers gave him in 2024. Heavy usage of two tight ends also means Wright's role is important to the offense, no matter who the offensive coordinator is or who is calling plays.
But a proverbial "TE1", Wright is not.
It (unsurprisingly) took one game to show how much the Lions will miss Sam LaPorta
As expected, Wright played 49 of the Lions' 59 offensive snaps against the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday night (an 83 percent snap share). He had seven targets in the game, albeit with just two catches for eight yards as the cold weather version of quarterback Jared Goff was in full bloom.
With the game against the Eagles in the books, LaPorta is second on the Lions in catch rate (81.6 percent) and he leads the team in success rate on receptions (69.4 percent) by a noticeable margin. He's also, however surprisingly, second on the team in yards per target (10.0).
Taking LaPorta out of the mix was naturally going to hurt, but his absence against the Eagles took the recent struggles of the Lions' offense to a different level of dismal.
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The decision to sideline him for four games says a lot, but the full extent of LaPorta's back issue is unclear. After the game, matching the general vibe after a tough loss, head coach Dan Campbell did not come as overly optimistic about LaPorta's return timeline.
"Obviously, it’s enough to where we’re talking about four weeks here,” Campbell said. “So, obviously, we’re going to hope that this thing calms down. And after those four games, we can get him back, but we’re really just taking this day-to-day, week-to-week.”
Asked then if he expected to get LaPorta back this season, Campbell provided a sobering answer.
"I’m hopeful, but I really don’t know."
The Lions' offense has a lot of issues beyond LaPorta's injury-forced absence. But there's no denying his importance, and the game against the Eagles fully put him alongside Goff, Amon-Ra St. Brown and Jahmyr Gibbs among those who cannot be replaced.