{"id":1036653,"date":"2026-10-25T11:31:19","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T11:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/1036653\/"},"modified":"2026-10-25T11:31:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T11:31:19","slug":"lions-sam-laporta-clarifies-contract-comments-i-want-to-play-for-this-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/1036653\/","title":{"rendered":"Lions&#8217; Sam LaPorta clarifies contract comments: &#8220;I want to play for this team&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lions tight end Sam LaPorta said this week that if he doesn\u2019t get a new contract from the Lions, <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcsports.com\/nfl\/profootballtalk\/rumor-mill\/news\/sam-laporta-if-i-dont-get-a-deal-from-the-lions-ill-go-get-paid-somewhere-else\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">he\u2019ll go get paid somewhere else<\/a>. LaPorta spoke to the media on Friday to clarify that \u201csomewhere else\u201d would not be his first choice.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI feel bad if there was any sort of distraction to the team or my teammates or the coaches, but I think there was maybe a bit of a misconception with, I guess \u2014 my intentions are I want to play for this team,\u201d LaPorta said. \u201cI give everything I have. My teammates do, as well. They all love me, respect me and support me, and they want to see me be happy and be compensated.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>LaPorta has been disappointed with the offers the Lions have given him on a long-term extension, but he said he and his pregnant wife are still hoping to stay in Detroit for years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI guess I wouldn\u2019t expect anybody else to really even care, but emotionally for me and my family, it\u2019s an important thing for us,\u201d LaPorta said. \u201cWe want to have stability. We\u2019re excited, in the coming months, we\u2019re gonna have our first kid, me and my wife. We\u2019re gonna welcome our baby girl into the world in Metro Detroit. We want to be here with the Lions. I guess I\u2019m getting emotional about it, but in the grand scheme of things, it\u2019s really a business. And you have to respect what the front office is doing because they\u2019re the ones calling the shots. They\u2019re the ones that brought me in. This is my first team. They\u2019ve been nothing but supportive of me and my career.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>LaPorta is in the fourth and final year of his rookie contract, and his base salary this year is $5.675 million. He knows he\u2019s lucky to make the money he\u2019s already making, but his contract is still a far cry from what the highest-paid tight ends in the NFL are making.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re very blessed. I\u2019m getting paid millions of dollars this year,\u201d LaPorta said. \u201cBut also, when I reflect on other people in the league, I feel like I\u2019m doing just as good a job if not better, and I want to be paid like those guys.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lions tight end Sam LaPorta said this week that if he doesn\u2019t get a new contract from the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1036654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,6],"class_list":["post-1036653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-football","tag-nfl"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117501328346626079","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1036653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1036653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1036653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1036654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1036653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1036653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1036653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}