The market has already priced in the fall. Anyone who drafted Sam LaPorta in 2024 after his record-shattering rookie year knows exactly how this feels -- you bought the ceiling, and you've been watching it crack ever since.
The numbers tell the story cleanly. LaPorta's production has declined in every single season since his 2023 breakout, and last year's campaign ended early with a back injury that required surgery. In 2025, across just nine games, he posted 40 receptions for 489 yards and three touchdowns. That's not a tight end you're starting with confidence in a 12-team PPR league. That's a streaming candidate with name recognition.
And yet. Jared Goff isn't done with him.
Sam LaPorta is a stud, Goff said, per ProFootballTalk. We've got to find ways to get him the ball.
That quote matters more than any single stat line, because it tells you the quarterback still believes. But belief doesn't win fantasy weeks. Targets do. And right now, the target hierarchy in Detroit is the problem LaPorta's fantasy managers have to solve.
Let me be direct about where this lands: LaPorta is no longer a locked-in top-five tight end, and anyone treating him that way in 2026 drafts is paying for the 2023 jersey, not the current one. His ceiling is still real. His floor is what scares me.
The Production Slide, In Context
Rookie tight ends don't do what LaPorta did in 2023. He was the TE1 overall that year, a league-winning asset who looked like the next great at the position. Fifty yards a game, red-zone presence, a quarterback who trusted him in traffic. It was one of the best rookie tight end seasons in recent memory, and it set an expectation that was always going to be brutal to maintain.
Then 2024 happened, and the numbers dipped. Then 2025 came, and the dip turned into a cliff -- nine games, 489 yards, three scores, and a back that finally gave out. You don't need to know the exact snap percentage to understand what happened. The trajectory is the story: every year since the breakout, the production has gone down. Not flat. Down.
That's the most dangerous word in fantasy football -- "trend." When a player's best season is behind him and each year gets worse, you're not buying a discount. You're buying a falling knife.
The Back Injury Changes Everything
Here's the part that makes LaPorta a genuine 2026 question mark rather than just a regression story: back surgery is not a hamstring tweak. It's not a broken finger you play through. Back injuries linger, they affect everything from route running to blocking, and they have a nasty habit of stealing the explosiveness that made a player special in the first place.
LaPorta's game was never about raw speed. It was about timing, leverage, and winning at the catch point. A back that doesn't fully recover eats all three of those things. The concern isn't whether he plays in 2026. It's whether the player we see in September is the one who torched defenses as a rookie or the one who struggled to separate last year before the injury ended his season.
The honest answer: nobody knows. But the smart fantasy play is to assume the worst until proven otherwise.
Where the Targets Are Going Instead
This is the part that should really worry anyone investing in LaPorta this season. Look at the weapons around him. Amon-Ra St. Brown posted 117 receptions for 1,401 yards and 11 touchdowns in 2025. Jameson Williams broke out with 65 grabs, 1,117 yards, and seven scores. Jahmyr Gibbs was a dual-threat monster out of the backfield -- 1,223 rushing yards and 616 receiving yards. Isaac TeSlaa, a 2025 third-round pick, put up 16 receptions with six touchdowns in his rookie season, a red-zone efficiency that screams "trusted target."
That's not a thin offense hungry for targets. That's a crowded room where every reception is earned.
Goff threw for 4,564 yards and 34 touchdowns in 2025. Those are elite volume numbers. But they were distributed across a spread attack that didn't need a dominant tight end. LaPorta's decline isn't just about his own health or performance -- it's that the offense evolved past the point where he was the featured middle-of-the-field weapon. St. Brown owns the short and intermediate routes. Williams owns the deep stuff. Gibbs owns the checkdowns. What's left for the tight end?
Not nothing. But not enough to justify a top-five draft slot.
The Case for Optimism
Now let me steelman the other side, because it's not a worthless one.
Goff's quote is real, and it matters. When the starting quarterback publicly says the team needs to find ways to get a player the ball, that's usually a scripted message to the coaching staff. Offensive coordinator Drew Petzing heard it. The play-calling will reflect it, at least early in the season. LaPorta should see a target-share bump in September.
The tight end room also doesn't have an obvious challenger for the top job. Brock Wright is a blocker-first option. Tyler Conklin is a veteran who posted just 101 receiving yards with the Chargers in 2025. Anthony Firkser is a depth piece. Nobody on this roster threatens LaPorta's role as the passing-down tight end. The job is his. The question was never opportunity -- it was production.
And remember what LaPorta did when he was healthy and featured. The 2023 season wasn't a fluke in terms of skill. It was real. The question is whether the body holds up and whether the offense can get back to featuring a tight end who isn't the primary read on most plays.
My Verdict on LaPorta for 2026
Here's where I land, and I'll own the call: LaPorta is a mid-tier TE1 this season, not a top-three difference-maker, and anyone drafting him inside the first five rounds of a fantasy draft is making a mistake.
I put his ceiling at about 60 catches, 650 yards, and six touchdowns if everything goes right -- health, target share, red-zone usage. That's a solid starting tight end in PPR, roughly the TE5 to TE8 range on a weekly basis. It's not the guy who wins you a league single-handedly.
The floor is scarier. If the back isn't right, if the recovery drags into the season, if the targets don't materialize because the offense just doesn't need him -- you're looking at a 35-catch, 350-yard season from a player you spent a premium pick on. That's a league-losing outcome.
My recommendation: let someone else draft the name. Target the upside in the later rounds -- the Isaac TeSlaas of the world who are going late but scoring touchdowns. LaPorta will have weeks where he looks like the 2023 version again. He'll have weeks where you wonder if he's even on the field. That variance is a feature of his 2026 profile, not a bug you can fix.
DFS players should treat him as a tournament play, not a cash-game staple. The game-script variance is too wide, and the target share is too unpredictable. When Detroit faces a defense with a weak middle of the field and the game projects as a shootout, LaPorta is a GPP dart. When it's a grind-it-out matchup, leave him on the bench.
Goff believes. The coaching staff will try. But belief doesn't catch passes, and back injuries don't care about narratives. Sam LaPorta is a talented tight end on a great offense who used to be a fantasy difference-maker.
In 2026, he's a question mark you let someone else answer.