Lions head coach Dan Campbell said things were trending the right way for tight end Sam LaPorta to play in this weekend’s game against the Colts and Wednesday’s injury report reflects that.
While Detroit held a walk-through instead of a full practice, the club listed LaPorta (shoulder) as a full participant on the injury report estimate.
LaPorta did not play in the Week 11 victory over the Jaguars.
In his second season, LaPorta has 25 receptions for 366 yards with three touchdowns in nine games.
The Lions have a relatively clean injury report to start Week 12. Cornerback Carlton Davis (thumb), cornerback Emmanuel Moseley (pectoral, tight end Shane Zylstra (neck), and receiver Allen Robinson (gameday concussion protocol evaluation) were also full participants.
The Lions didn’t miss tight end Sam LaPorta in last Sunday’s 52-6 win over the Jaguars, but they would still happily welcome him back to the lineup for this Sunday’s game against the Colts.
On Wednesday, Lions head coach Dan Campbell suggested there’s a good chance that LaPorta, who has been out with a shoulder injury, tries to help the team pick up its 10th straight win.
“It’s questionable to above for LaPorta,” Campbell said, via Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press. “It’s trending the right way.”
While the next couple of days will provide a fuller picture of LaPorta’s outlook, the Lions can expect to have defensive lineman Brodric Martin available for Sunday. Martin has been out with a knee injury, but he was activated from injured reserve on Wednesday.
Help is on the way for Indianapolis’ defensive front.
Via multiple reporters, Colts head coach Shane Steichen said on Wednesday that the club is opening the 21-day practice window for veteran defensive lineman Tyquan Lewis.
Lewis has been sidelined since injuring his elbow in the Week 4 victory over the Steelers and was placed on injured reserve.
The veteran has 1.5 sacks with two tackles for loss and three quarterback hits so far this season.
Steichen also noted that left tackle Bernhard Raimann (knee) will be listed as a non-participant on the day’s injury report, though the Colts are holding a walk-through on Wednesday. He missed last weekend’s victory over the Jets.
Indianapolis’ full injury report will be released later in the day.
Until Sunday, no player in NFL history had multiple games with at least 400 passing yards, four passing touchdowns, and a perfect 158.3 passer rating. But now Jared Goff has done it.
Goff finished Sunday’s win over the Jaguars with 412 passing yards, four touchdowns and a 158.3 passer rating. In 2018, while with the Rams, Goff had a game with 465 yards, five touchdowns, and a 158.3 passer rating.
Only seven times in NFL history has a quarterback finished a game with 400 yards, four touchdowns and a perfect passer rating. Goff is the only player on the list twice.
The other five quarterbacks who have reached those thresholds in a game are Ken O’Brien in 1986, Nick Foles in 2013, Dak Prescott in 2019, Aaron Rodgers in 2019 and Deshaun Watson in 2019.
Lions defensive back Ifeatu Melifonwu is back on injured reserve.
The Lions activated Melifonwu on Monday, but head coach Dan Campbell indicated it would be a brief stint on the 53-man roster. Melifonwu was designated to return from an ankle injury, but suffered a finger injury while making his way back to full speed.
“He had something come up and he won’t be ready for a while,” Campbell said, via Nolan Bianchi of the Detroit News.
Melifonwu will have to miss four more games, but can be designated for return again later in the season.
Melifonwu had 33 tackles, three sacks, two interceptions, and a forced fumble for the Lions last season.
When the Lions beat the Jaguars 52-6 on Sunday, it represented their third win this season by at least 38 points. No team in NFL history has more.
Seven other teams in NFL history have won by 38 or more points exactly three times in a season (counting both regular season and postseason games), but no team has done it four times. The Lions have seven more games in the regular season, and likely some games in the postseason as well, to become the first team ever to win four games by such a large margin.
The Lions have the three biggest blowouts in the NFL this season: Their win over the Jaguars was the biggest blowout of the year, and the Lions’ 52-14 win over the Titans and 47-9 win over the Cowboys were the next two biggest wins of any team in the NFL. No team other than the Lions has won a game by 38 or more points this season.
With a +159 point differential this season, the Lions have outscored their opponents by more than two touchdowns per game. They’re dominating like no other team in the league this year, and like few other teams in NFL history.
The Lions traded for Za’Darius Smith earlier this month in order to bolster a defensive line that’s missing Aidan Hutchinson and they got their first look at him in action in Sunday’s game against the Jaguars.
Smith played 37 of the team’s 48 defensive snaps and the veteran defensive end shared a sack with linebacker Jack Campbell. The outing was short on other individual highlights, but the 52-6 final score speaks to how overwhelming the defensive effort was on Sunday.
On Monday, Lions head coach Dan Campbell gave Smith’s first run with the team a positive review.
“I thought he did some things for us, I thought he did some good things for us,” Campbell said, via the team’s website. “It was good to have him out there. I thought, really like we talked about last week, just be a piece of this puzzle and he’s a guy that’s played, he is instinctive, he doesn’t stay blocked long, he’s really good with his hands. Like I said, he can set an edge in the run game and he’s really good at working gains with [Alim McNeill] and [D.J. Reader] and those guys. He’s got a knack for those things. So, I think, first outing with him, I thought it was good. I think he fits right in with us.”
The Lions didn’t need Smith to be a hero in Week 11, but there may be moments when more is needed from him and his debut performance suggests he’ll be able to answer that call when it comes.
The Lions hope to have linebacker Alex Anzalone back for the postseason, but he’s not going to be in the lineup anytime soon.
Anzalone broke his forearm in Sunday’s 52-6 win over the Jaguars and he’s expected to miss six-to-eight weeks as a result of the injury. The Lions moved him to injured reserve on Monday.
They filled the roster spot by activating defensive back Ifeatu Melifonwu from injured reserve, but Melifonwu may not be on the active roster for long. Melifonwu was coming back from an ankle injury when he suffered a new problem with his finger and head coach Dan Campbell said at his Monday press conference that it will be some time before he’s set to play again. The Lions can put Melifonwu back on injured reserve and designate him for return again later this season.
The Lions also announced that they have signed former Dolphins linebacker David Long to their practice squad. He had 38 tackles in eight games — six starts — for the Dolphins this season.
The three biggest blowouts of this NFL season have been wins by the Lions: They beat the Jaguars by 46 points on Sunday, and they beat both the Cowboys and Titans by 38 points earlier this season. No other team in the league has won a game by more than 37 points in 2024.
But winning games by blowout raises questions about running up the score, and keeping starters in the game for too long. Lions coach Dan Campbell says he understands that some will criticize his approach to continuing to play his top players with big leads, but he welcomes that criticism.
“Normally this doesn’t happen. This is the third time this has come up this season. That’s a good problem to have,” Campbell said. “You want to know that you finish on a good note, you found a rhythm, you keep the rhythm.”
Lions quarterback Jared Goff was still in the game, throwing passes, into the fourth quarter, and so were the rest of the Lions’ starters. Once the starting offense scored its seventh touchdown on seven possessions, Campbell did pull Goff and many other starters, although Campbell was questioned about why one of his most important players, right tackle Penei Sewell, played every snap. Campbell noted that the Lions only had eight active offensive linemen, so they couldn’t take all five starters out, and he says when it’s time to take players out of the game he prioritizes older players or players who have injuries, and Sewell is young and healthy.
“You got to do what you got to do to finish the game out, and you can only do so much about it,” Campbell said.
Campbell made clear that he’s not going to tell his players to take their feet off the gas just because someone might get hurt late in a game.
“I do not want to let the fear of injury take away from our identity,” Campbell said. “The minute you start worrying about injuries, that’s when bad things happen.”
The Lions have never been to a Super Bowl, and they’ve never been the betting favorites to win the Super Bowl, either. Until now.
After Detroit destroyed Jacksonville on Sunday, and Kansas City lost at Buffalo, the Lions became the betting favorites to win the Super Bowl. That had never happened before, in the history of the franchise.
At DraftKings, the Lions are +350 betting favorites to win the Super Bowl. At FanDuel, the Lions are +420 favorites. They’re in the same range at other sports books.
The Chiefs are the next-most likely team to win the Super Bowl according to the betting odds, with the Bills, Ravens and Eagles behind them in different orders depending on which sports book you check.
At 9-1 and with a +159 point differential, the Lions are easily the best team in the NFL right now. That’s no guarantee they’ll be the team holding the Lombardi Trophy in February. But for the first time ever, they’re the most likely team to win it all.
