Sam LaPorta News: High hopes for new Lions OC

LaPorta said Wednesday that new Lions offensive coordinator John Morton has a "brilliant mind" and should do a great job calling plays, NFL.com's Kevin Patra reports.

This is LaPorta's first time working with Morton, who was an assistant on Ben Johnson's staff in 2022. Morton was Denver's passing-game coordinator the past two years, before circling back to Detroit to replace Johnson this winter. The Lions also lost starting center Frank Ragnow (retired) and right guard Keven Zeitler (Titans) this offseason, but they retained all their key skill-position players -- an impressive group led by LaPorta, RB Jahmyr Gibbs, RB David Montgomery, WR Amon-Ra St. Brown and WR Jameson Williams. The tough competition likely means LaPorta will see less volume than what he's capable of handling, after dropping from 120 targets as a rookie in 2023 to just 83 targets in 2024. He had six or fewer targets in each of his first eight games last season, but he then got six or more targets in nine straight contests to close out the year, with six TDs during that stretch.