Dynasty Fantasy Football Mailbag: Sam LaPorta on Track for Greatness?

Welcome back to the DLF Mailbag, the preeminent mailbag in all the dynasty fantasy football land. As a reminder, there are multiple ways to pose your burning questions! I’ll be soliciting weekly feedback via X/Twitter (look for a new pinned tweet each Monday), and you can also reach out using our Discord channel, or the old-fashioned way (via our online webform).

Mandatory minicamps are now in the rearview, leaving the Franchise Tag deadline (July 17th) as the next important date in the league calendar. With Tee Higgins reportedly ending his holdout, much of the remaining drama has subsided. If you’re a believer in the 25-year-old’s talent, now might be a good time to make an offer, given contract extension talks between Higgins and the Bengals are reportedly non-existent and he seems likely to play out the year on the tag. This has the potential to introduce doubt in the minds of his owners, as his long-term future remains unsettled. Should he regain his form and either re-sign with Cincinnati or another potent passing offense, prospective buyers could wind up receiving a bargain.

Let’s get to it!

From the Old-School Webform…

LaPorta-Plotting

What do the advanced numbers look like for Sam LaPorta compared to other recent TE1 seasons? What did his routes/splits look like, what was the balance of volume versus effectiveness? And ultimately, how much of the system in Detroit do we think is responsible for his success? Would that might be at risk if Ben Johnson leaves? –Brian in Indiana

I’ve spilled plenty of ink in this space and others as to the virtues of young Mr. LaPorta. And as I had opined even prior to last season’s inception, the writing was on the wall – he was an early collegiate breakout who dominated all relevant receiving targets at Tight End University (University of Iowa), producing despite playing on some of college football’s most inept offenses. This pro readiness manifested in the form of the overall PPR TE1 season in 2023 despite his rookie status.

But it’s also fair to point out that it was something of a down year for the position, as shown in the table below, which highlights outputs from the last five NFL seasons.

LaPorta’s 235.3 points was easily the lowest, and he wasn’t actually the TE1 in terms of points per game (that honor unsurprisingly went to Travis Kelce). But I view this less as a knock on LaPorta, and more on some prior individual greatness.

In 2019, LaPorta would’ve finished as the PPR TE4 (numbers extrapolated to a 17-game season). In 2020, he would’ve been the TE3 – notably though Kelce and Darren Waller lapped the field, and were both over 100 points clear of Robert Tonyan. In 2021 and 2022 LaPorta would’ve finished as the PPR TE3 and TE2, respectively. The fact is, Kelce was just so aberrantly dominant that it skewed many of these overall TE1 numbers, but the rest of the pack was far behind. The only players in the past five years who beat LaPorta’s rookie numbers in any given season were Kelce, Waller, Mark Andrews and George Kittle. That’s some pretty good company.

Let’s next compare LaPorta’s freshman campaign to those of other greats and great prospects at the position.

When comparing apples to rookie apples, LaPorta is more or less peerless. He was nearly 60 points clear of the next closest player (Pitts), and no other player eclipsed a ranking of the seasonal TE6. While acknowledging injuries were a factor in some cases, the majority of players listed above finished their rookie seasons in the TE2 tier or worse.

So from a 10,000-foot view, it would be hard to assert that any scheme, no matter how tight end-friendly, could catalyze that type of ascension. Even Hockenson’s 2022 Detroit pace would have resulted in roughly three fewer points per game than what LaPorta did last year. But for the sake of completeness, let’s attempt to check this box.

Several years ago I invented the Adjusted Improvement Ratio metric, or AIR for short. The goal was to see whether or not a player transcended the confines of his offense, or if his output was more a product of volume than efficiency. While I’m not a biostatistician and cannot claim this is a predictive or statistically significant exercise, it puts a player’s season in perspective.

To calculate AIR, the following formula is used:

((Player PPR points / Team PPR points) / (Player targets / Team targets)) x 100

In 2023 the team provided 1044.5 points to its pass catchers, with LaPorta accounting for 235.4 of them (22.5%). This occurred over 605 team targets, with LaPorta the intended recipient on 120 of them (19.8%). Plugging these inputs into the AIR formula provides a result of 1.14.

To put this in perspective, a score of 1.00 asserts a player is doing exactly as he should. LaPorta’s score would qualify in the very good to great range, if perhaps not elite. However it should be noted that with lower aDOTs, tight ends are typically more reliant on touchdowns to achieve higher AIR scores. So I’m not taking this score for granted, and believe it’s extremely favorable.

To conclude, LaPorta played the second-most offensive snaps (83.7%) of the team’s pass catchers, behind only receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown. On these snaps he ran 500 routes, which means he effectively participated in 82.6% of the team’s 605 passing attempts, and received a target once every 4.2 routes run. From a fantasy perspective, this means LaPorta averaged 0.47 PPR points on every route.

All told everything points in the same direction, which is “up.” LaPorta was a near full-time player who commanded targets and was efficient with them. He was the overall TE1, and trounced every other relevant rookie in recent memory. I don’t know what’s going to happen with the team moving forward, specifically as to the ultimate disposition of offensive coordinator Ben Johnson (though notably quarterback Jared Goff was just given a big money extension). But given he was that good that early, I have no issue projecting continued greatness.

From Twitter…

Laying Down the (T-)Law

For the June 18 mailbag, a follow-up, I traded Levis and a 2025 1st for Herbert to improve my QB depth. Now thinking either MHJ or targeting J Allen or CJ Stroud for TLaw +1.1. Would love your thoughts, DLF and KTC say it’s an overpay. Should I try to upgrade TLAW or take MHJ?

— Thomas Burgerson (@tferguson9) June 13, 2024

Affirming Thomas’ thoughts regarding an overpay, the DLF Trade Analyzer indeed appears to frown on both potential deals, as shown below.

As always though, context is important. And to me, the context is effectively threefold as to why either one of these deals may still make sense:

1. In an 8-team league, stud players are going to rule the roost.
2. In “consolidation deals,” the team receiving the best asset is the one to typically overpay.
3. If you can improve your starting lineup by using depth pieces, more often than not it’s going to be a good deal.

In this scenario, your side is checking all the boxes. Merging these three tenets, I view the overpay as acceptable given that you’re receiving the best player in the deal without sacrificing your starting lineup.

It’s likely your biggest consideration is how you feel about 2024 rookie Marvin Harrison Jr Having the stellar quartet of Justin Jefferson, Garrett Wilson, DeVonta Smith and Zay Flowers puts you at a positional advantage, but it shouldn’t preclude you from adding to your wealth if you believe MHJ is going to turn into a top-three dynasty receiver asset. To that point, per the current DLF dynasty he’s already viewed as the WR5 before playing a single NFL down, and he would theoretically slot in as your second-most valuable dynasty asset at the position, just ahead of Wilson. If you’re of a similar mind, I understand standing pat.

At quarterback, Joe Burrow should put up QB1 numbers as long as he stays healthy. But while I like turning the mercurial Will Levis into Justin Herbert, the latter is coming off a tough 2023 campaign. And unfortunately the cavalry hasn’t exactly arrived, and in fact is more accurately described to be in retreat mode under new head coach Jim Harbaugh – gone are quarterback-friendly pass catchers in Keenan Allen, Mike Williams and Austin Ekeler, replaced solely by second-round rookie Ladd McConkey. Harbaugh undoubtedly wants to implement a run-first offense, and as such we shouldn’t just assume a QB1 campaign is in the cards.

As for Lawrence, I’m just not terribly intrigued, and the rest of the dynasty masses seem to think similarly as he’s now considered the QB13 per the current ADP. The massive counterpoint is the big-money contract ($200 million guaranteed) he just received from Jacksonville. Actions speak louder than words, and while rational minds may differ as to whether his play warrants that kind of coin, the fact is all doubt has been removed about his future viability as the team’s starter.

But Josh Allen is just different. He’s been a QB1 every year in the league, including three overall #1 finishes and one #2 finish in the past four years. We can further consider his game log from last season to provide the exclamation point.

CJ Stroud may lack Allen’s robust rushing ability, but as I detailed last week he has a Drew Brees-level ceiling as a pocket passer. He also has a better supporting cast than does Allen, including the latter’s former teammate in receiver Stefon Diggs. Given this, it’s probably a coin flip as to which one is the better asset, but either makes for a stellar trade target.

More importantly, whoever you trade for will already become your QB1 and best dynasty asset. Herbert and Lawrence have value, but this would be a level-up to a new stratosphere. I view these types of deals as the ones that win leagues.

Myself, I’d likely opt for Stroud given how good he was as a rookie, and also how Houston is building a fantastic team around him. He has a robust argument to be considered as the dynasty QB1. But to your overarching question, and even acknowledging Harrison’s likely future as an NFL and fantasy stud, I’d be looking to make the deal regardless of what any dynasty calculator says.

Follow me on Twitter @EDH_27.

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Eric Hardter

Contributor at Dynasty League Football

Eric is a Boston College chemistry grad school survivor with a minor in dynasty football. He prefers to utilize both statistics and sarcasm whenever possible, believes in process over results and thinks "Hot Takes" are the scourge of the fantasy landscape.

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