It\u2019s been nearly two months since Sam LaPorta\u2019s season suddenly ended with a mysterious back injury. The Detroit Lions tight end played nearly every snap of the team\u2019s Week 9 game against the Washington Commanders. Then he was on the injury report with a back injury. Then he was surprisingly put on injured reserve. Then coach Dan Campbell suddenly announced LaPorta underwent a procedure that will end his season.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve never gotten an exact diagnosis on LaPorta\u2019s injury, but on Wednesday, Campbell gave us a lot more details on the injury, including a hopeful timeline for the Pro Bowl tight end.<\/p>\n
First, the bad news. Campbell admitted this was an injury that was serious enough that he was never in consideration for returning if the Lions made a deep run in the playoffs. He also said that with injuries like neck and back, there is just a level of uncertainty, making it hard to predict how the body will react to treatment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose can be concerning just because you don\u2019t know. You don\u2019t know exactly what\u2019s going to come out of that, how do they recover,\u201d Campbell said. \u201cSo, that\u2019s always going to kind of be back there a little bit until either he is fully healed or he\u2019s not quite there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The relatively good news is that Campbell, despite the uncertainty, is hopeful LaPorta will be ready by training camp, giving him a shot at a full, healthy season in 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like next year, that certainly isn\u2019t off the table early in the year. You\u2019d like to believe training camp we\u2019ll get him,\u201d Campbell said. \u201cBut you\u2019re talking about a back (injury). And he\u2019s improving, but yet he\u2019s not completely healed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Campbell also gave a little more details as to what was ailing him, without giving a specific diagnosis.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s rehabbing every day. Certainly, it feels better after the surgery than he did right before, so that\u2019s a positive. Took a lot of stress off that nerve, so we\u2019ll see,\u201d Campbell said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a tough year for Lions tight ends. Shane Zylstra suffered an ankle injury in Week 2 that caused him to miss 11 games. LaPorta\u2019s injury happened at the midway point of the year, meaning he\u2019ll miss out on the final eight games. Brock Wright, who suffered a neck injury shortly after LaPorta, will miss the final six games of the year. Even Campbell had to admit it has hurt the team missing those guys for large swaths of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cTight ends are a big part of what we do. Certainly the run game, but the pass game as well,\u201d Campbell said. \u201cSo, when you lose your top two guys, it becomes a little harder for sure. So, it\u2019s affected us.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to LaPorta, three other key Lions players will be spending a lot of their 2026 offseason rehabbing. Cornerback Terrion Arnold, and safeties Kerby Joseph and Brian Branch suffered long-term injuries this year. Joseph missed the final three months of the season with a concerning knee injury, Branch suffered a torn Achilles in Week 14, and Arnold suffered a shoulder injury that required a pair of surgeries, the last of which occured this week<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been nearly two months since Sam LaPorta\u2019s season suddenly ended with a mysterious back injury. The Detroit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645995,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[13944,153,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-645994","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-detroit-lions-injury-report","9":"tag-detroit-lions-news","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115820974863705593","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645994","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=645994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}