A contract extension for Lions tight end Sam LaPorta may not be off the table, but it doesn’t sound like the two sides are close to an agreement.
LaPorta is in the final year of his rookie deal and a report last weekend indicated that talks about a new deal have broken off. On Wednesday, LaPorta took some issue with that assessment while sharing his understanding of where things stand at this point.
“I don’t know if it’s truly off the table, but I think there’s certainly a stalemate right now,” LaPorta said, via Tim Twentyman of the team’s website. “I’m really giving the reins to my agent, Jack Bechta. He’s been handling it with the front office. All the advice he’s given me so far is that we just haven’t come to terms yet.”
Head coach Dan Campbell called LaPorta’s contract talks “the last thing on my mind right now” during his Wednesday press conference and LaPorta’s play hasn’t appeared to be negatively impacted by the negotiations. He has 22 catches for 228 yards and two touchdowns through four weeks, which puts him on pace for his most productive season since joining the team.
Lions Clips
Lions head coach Dan Campbell says the report that tight end Sam LaPorta and the team have broken off contract talks is not an issue.
Asked about the report today, Campbell downplayed it and said LaPorta had his best game of the season on Sunday after the report came out.
“That’s the last thing on my mind right now,” Campbell said. “There’s always gonna be two sides, and you work through these things. Just because there’s a report of that doesn’t mean that’s some big issue, big deal. I love LaPorta. We love LaPorta. He’s a heck of a football player and I thought he played his best game the other day. His work ethic, his production speaks for itself.”
The 25-year-old LaPorta, whom the Lions drafted in the second round in 2023, is in the final year of his rookie contract. Through four games this season, he is averaging career highs in catches per game (5.5) and yards per game (57.0). He should become one of the NFL’s highest-paid tight ends next year, either with the Lions or some other team.
The Lions are welcoming a pair of players back to practice this week.
Safety Brian Branch and center Cade Mays will both begin the return to play process. They can be activated at any point in the next 21 days.
Branch tore his Achilles last season and has been on the physically unable to perform list since the start of training camp. The Lions struggled defensively in the first four weeks of the season and Branch’s return to the lineup should help improve on the “mediocrity” head coach Dan Campbell has seen so far this season.
Mays broke his wrist during training camp. He was slated to be the starter prior to the injury and the Lions have used Juice Scruggs in his place.
Running back Jamaal Williams last played in the NFL in 2024. On Tuesday, he got a chance to get a spot on a roster, or a practice squad.
Per the league’s daily transaction report, Williams had a workout with the Patriots.
He wasn’t signed; cornerback Al’Zillion Hamilton, who was one of the other players getting a workout on Tuesday, was added to the practice squad.
Williams, 31, was a fourth-round pick of the Packers in 2017. He spent four seasons in Green Bay, two in Detroit, and two in New Orleans.
He has 4,122 career rushing yards, 1,310 receiving yards, and 40 touchdowns. In 2022, Williams led the league with 17 rushing touchdowns.
Seahawks cornerback Terrion Arnold got some bad news on Monday, when co-defendant Boakai Hilton pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against Arnold.
As to the case against Arnold, there’s still no trial date.
Via Bob Condotta of the Seattle Times, the matter returns to court on December 15 for a status hearing. It’s highly unlikely that the case will go to trial before the 2026 season ends. Which means it’s highly unlikely that Arnold will play for the Seahawks in 2026.
The only path to playing would consist of a plea deal that results in jail time plus an unpaid suspension of less than 17 games. Arnold would get credit for the games missed on paid leave.
Given that the alleged mastermind of the armed robbery and kidnapping aimed at recovering property stolen from a home Arnold had rented, it’s hard to imagine the prosecution offering a plea bargain with no jail time. That makes it virtually impossible for Arnold to play this season — unless lawyer Harvey Steinberg can somehow secure a My Cousin Vinny-style dismissal of all charges.
The Saints knocked the Lions out of the top spot for points allowed on Monday night, but being anywhere near the top of that list is not where teams want to be four weeks into the season.
Detroit has allowed at least 24 points and 355 yards in each of their four games, which led to head coach Dan Campbell’s vote of confidence for defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard after Sunday night’s loss to the Panthers. During an appearance on 97.1 The Ticket on Tuesday, Campbell pointed to a lack of discipline and a lack of trust among players on the unit as reasons why the defense has been so easily torn apart. He added that others will get opportunities as the team looks for the right mix to improve their results.
“We’re going to give some other guys an opportunity, and go, man. But we’re not going to accept mediocrity. That’s not what we’re doing here,” Campbell said. “We’ve got too many guys playing at a high level, and we’re going to raise the floor on this team.”
The Lions offense ranks fifth in the league in points scored, but some have wondered if the defense’s inability to get stops has an adverse effect on the offense. Campbell was asked about that, but said he thinks the team has been “average” across the board and that the offense has room to improve alongside the defense.
“Man, if you want to be great, they should want to score 35 points a game, at a minimum,” Campbell said. “That’s what greatness is. That’s what they’re charged with. We’ve got plenty of weapons on offense and if we’re gonna accept mediocrity, then yeah, we can make all the excuses in the world. If we want to spit and sputter and be average, that’s one thing. We’re not going to be average. We’re going to raise the floor on these guys, man. We’re going to push ‘em. We’ve got too much offensively right now. Our quarterback’s too good, our playmakers are too good, and we’ve got a young, hungry offensive line that’s got a ton of room to grow.”
Campbell was adamant this summer that the Lions’ Super Bowl window is not closed, but the first four weeks haven’t done much to support the feeling that big things are in store for the team this season. That will need to change quickly if they want to avoid calls for more sweeping changes to how business is getting done in Detroit.
The MVP award has become, essentially, a “best quarterback” award — with rare exceptions.
No non-quarterback has won the MVP prize since Vikings running back Adrian Peterson eked out the distinction over Peyton Manning in 2012. In the current century, a non-quarterback became the MVP only four times: Marshall Faulk in 2000, Shaun Alexander in 2005, LaDainian Tomlinson in 2006, and Peterson in 2012.
This year, a couple of running backs deserve serious consideration, based on what we’ve seen through four weeks.
Falcons running back Bijan Robinson is a touchdown waiting to happen, on any given play. His opening-drive 59-yard touchdown run on Monday night in New Orleans set the tone for Atlantas’ 45-24 win.
Though four games, Robinson has 494 yards rushing and 120 yards receiving and five total touchdowns.
Chiefs running back Kenneth Walker III has become the straw that stirs the Kansas City cocktail. He has 537 yards rushing, 84 yards receiving, and six total touchdowns. He’s also the third player in NFL history to have 170 or more rushing yards in two of the first four games of a season, joining only Jim Brown and O.J. Simpson.
Both Robinson and Walker have 99 touches. Walker has gained 621 yards. Robinson has gained 614.
When it comes to the MVP betting odds (which are instructive to the general perceptions that surely will influence some or many of the 50 Associated Press voters), both Robinson and Walker are low on the list. Robinson, who was 70-1 when Simms and I discussed the dynamic earlier this morning on PFT Live, is now at 60-1. Walker is 50-1.
Currently, the eight highest players on the list of odds are quarterbacks.
Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs sits at 30-1, which may be a reflection of the bets made on him before the season started. (He has 102 touches and 540 yards from scrimmage, with seven touchdowns.)
Here’s the real question. Is the perception of “value” skewed by the fact that the best quarterbacks make so much more money than the best quarterbacks? The top of the quarterback market is approaching $65 million per year. Gibbs, the highest-paid running back, is at $22.5 million annually.
Robinson sits at $22.25 million per year. Walker, who signed as a free agent months before the Robinson and Gibbs deals were done, is making $14.35 million per year. (To put it apples-to-apples terms, the Gibbs deal is worth $16.995 million per year from signing, Robinson’s deal has an average of $16.36 million from signing.)
The best running backs are far more valuable to their teams than the market suggests. The existing market held back Walker, Robinson, and Gibbs. The enhanced injury risk at the position is a major factor in the unwillingness of teams to embrace the financial risk that the player at some point won’t be available.
While their “value” may not properly be reflected in their contracts, it needs to be recognized in their consideration for the MVP award. The present betting trends show that it’s not. Whether it will be comes down to the ability and willingness of the voters to stop viewing the MVP as a quarterback prize and to start looking at the definition of the prize, as articulated by the AP.
“The player who was most valuable to their team over the course of the season.”
Robinson and Walker fit the bill. Gibbs will, too, if the Lions can recover from a sluggish start and become true contenders.
Veteran pass rusher Marcus Davenport didn’t request his release from the Bears’ practice squad so that he could sign with another team’s practice squad.
Via NFL Network, the 30-year-old Davenport will retire.
He was a first-round pick of the Saints in 2018 (14th overall). He spent five years in New Orleans, one in Minnesota, and two in Detroit before joining the Bears.
Davenport has 78 regular-season appearances with 43 starts. He hasn’t played much since leaving the Saints — 19 regular-season games and 11 starts in four seasons. He also has four postseason appearances and one start, all of which came with the Saints.
Davenport has 25.0 career sacks, with a career-high of 9.0 in 2021.
Seahawks cornerback Terrion Arnold remains on paid leave, as he faces eight felony counts arising from an alleged armed robbery and kidnapping. A Monday development won’t make it any easier for Arnold to defeat the charges.
Multiple defendants in the case have previously pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against the remaining defendants. Via Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press, Boakai Hilton pleaded guilty on Monday.
Under the deal, which results in a 10-year prison term for Hilton, he agreed to testify against Arnold, a first-round pick of the Lions in 2024.
A July article regarding the incident characterized Hilton, 23, as a “childhood friend” of Arnold’s. Hilton also was the alleged mastermind of the effort to confront the men who were suspected of stealing cash and other property from a house that had been rented by Arnold in Florida.
From the moment the news of the initial arrests emerged in February, it seemed obvious that prosecutors would attempt to leverage guilty pleas into evidence against Arnold. With Hilton pleading guilty and agreeing to testify, the prosecution may have everything it needs to make a compelling case against Arnold.
The Rams were losing 20-10 to the Eagles in the fourth quarter on Sunday, but anyone who thought the game was over hasn’t been watching Matthew Stafford over the years.
Stafford engineered a 10-play, 98-yard touchdown drive and followed that with a 10-play, 79-yard touchdown drive, and the Rams beat the Eagles 24-20. It was the 40th fourth-quarter comeback of Stafford’s career, and he said after the game that he and his teammates never doubted that they could pull it out.
“If you don’t have belief, then what are we doing? That’s what we put all this work in for,” Stafford said. “We put all the work in Monday through Saturday so that when those instances come up on Sunday, we believe in each other. We understand, this guy has put the work in to do what we do. Not every game is going to go exactly how you want it, sometimes you’re going to have to find ways to win football games and that’s what we did today. I know I believe in everybody in that huddle.”
The only other players in NFL history with 40 fourth-quarter comebacks are Tom Brady with 46, Peyton Manning with 43 and Ben Roethlisberger with 41. Stafford had 31 fourth-quarter comebacks with the Lions, and Sunday was his ninth with the Rams.
Stafford said those are special moments to share with his teammates.
“We’d love to go out there and score every time we touch the ball and stop them three-and-out, and that’s just not the case in the NFL,” Stafford said. “But coming together as a team, finding a way to figure it out and get a win . . . Just proud of our group, proud of our team.”
