Projecting Sam LaPorta's rookie stat line for the Lions

Tight ends and the Detroit Lions have been quite the combination in recent years. The Lions have spent two first round picks on them in the last 10 years. When they weren't doing that, the Lions have struggled with free agent signings that didn't pan out. The Lions are back at it this year with […]

Mike Payton — Detroit Lions Beat Writer

Jul 26, 2023 4:17 PM EDT

The Lions are back at it this year with another highly picked tight end. This time its Iowa's Sam Laporta. The Lions took LaPorta with the very third pick of the second round. He was the second tight end selected in the entire draft.

LaPorta has looked pretty good in all of the offseason activities and training camp so far. On Wednesday, Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson told the media that LaPorta had earned the right to be a part of the first team huddle.

The expectation for LaPorta is that he's going to be the Lions top receiving threat at tight end immediately. He has great hands and his yards after the catch ability is top tier when it comes to tight ends coming out in the draft.

With all that said, what can you expect from LaPorta year one? What's that stat sheet going to say at the end of year one. To help me out, I took at the past. Since LaPorta went at 34, he's basically a first round pick. So I decided to take a look at all the tight ends that have been drafted in the first two rounds of the last ten drafts.

There's been 27 tight ends selected since 2012. Here's how all their rookie years looked.

Player	Receptions	Receiving Yards	Receiving Touchdowns
Coby Fleener	26	281	2
Tyler Eifert	39	445	2
Zach Ertz	36	469	4
Gavin Escobar	9	134	2
Vance McDonald	8	119	0
Eric Ebron	25	248	1
Austin Seferian-Jenkins	21	221	2
Jace Amaro	38	345	2
Troy Niklas	3	38	0
Maxx Williams	32	268	1
Hunter Henry	36	478	8
Adam Shaheen	12	127	3
Gerald Everett	16	244	2
David Njoku	32	286	4
Evan Engram	64	722	6
O.J. Howard	26	432	6
Dallas Goedert	33	334	4
Mike Geisicki	22	202	0
Hayden Hurst	13	163	1
Drew Sample	5	30	0
Irv Smith Jr.	35	311	2
Noah Fant	40	562	3
T.J. Hockenson	32	367	2
Cole Kmet	28	243	2
Pat Friermuth	63	497	7
Kyle Pitts	68	1,026	1
Trey McBride	29	265	1

Not nearly what you expected right? Rookie tight ends just don't tend to light up the league. Kyle Pitts is really the only exception here. But Pitts also more of a receiver/tight end combination while the rest of these guys are your standard tight ends. Can LaPorta have a rookie year liek Pitts? I don't think so. The Lions have far too many receiving threats to expect that they could get 1,000 yards out of LaPorta in year one.

What's a better number? Well, let's do a little math and find a starting point, Adding all these guys numbers together and coming up with an average gives us 30 receptions for 329 yards and three touchdowns. That's a pretty good starting point. I think if LaPorta does this, it's not exactly what you hope for, but you can see where things could go with it.

I think a more apt projection would be 42 receptions for 448 yards and five touchdowns. Right there in the healthy median between Kyle Pitts and T.J. Hockenson. That's a pretty good start for the rookie. If he nails something like this, the hype for him is going to be way bigger.