Isaac TeSlaa

More episodes

• 2026 PreviewJul 3, 2026

  Isaac TeSlaa 2026 Season Preview — what repeats, what doesn't

  TeSlaa played all 14 games and finished as WR78 on 4.9 half-PPR points per game, a total built on very little target volume rather than any sustained role in the Detroit offense. Without a foundation of opportunity, there is nothing in the 2025 body of work that projects to carry forward.

  ▾

  0:003:28

  1x

  1515

  Your episode · 3:28

  Show notes & transcript

  Isaac TeSlaa caught 16 passes as a rookie and six of them were touchdowns. That ratio is why Detroit's beat spent June talking about him like a starter, and it's also the single least repeatable stat profile our library knows how to describe. Receiver 70, pick one-82, is the market trying to price both sentences at once.

  The season: 14 games with a stat line, 16 catches on 27 targets for 239 yards — and those six scores, third-most on the team behind only St. Brown and Williams, on a 5.8 percent target share. 4.9 Half-PPR points a game, 70-ninth among receivers per game, 70-eighth in total. The role was red zone and special packages: three offensive snaps in the opener at Green Bay, a one-handed touchdown anyway, per the Detroit News. That was the year in miniature — barely on the field, always in the end zone.

  The career arc is one season, so the projection lives entirely in the profile: a third-round pick Detroit traded up for, and a touchdown-per-2.7-catches rate that nobody in football sustains.

  The pattern beat is mostly a refusal, stated carefully. His touchdown share of fantasy value — point-four-seven, nearly half — is more than double the line where our receiver fade cohort begins, point-two-oh-eight. But that cohort's door is top-48 production, and he ranked 80-eighth by the cohort's own measure. The ratio screams; the cohort won't take him; we don't round players in. What our year-two research does license is modest and friendly: rookies in his scoring tier inch forward on average, about half a point. Nothing in the library prices a role change this steep in either direction.

  The situation is why the beat believes. Kalif Raymond took his snaps to Chicago in March, the number-three job is open, and SI's Lions coverage slots TeSlaa into it — their word is breakout. Dan Campbell told June minicamp he feels like a veteran and wished aloud they'd gotten him more touches last year; the receivers coach says his breaks are cleaner and he's stronger, per the team site. The offense turned over underneath him: John Morton lost play-calling in November and was fired in January, and Drew Petzing arrived from Arizona to run the offense, with Campbell expected to hand over the call sheet, per ESPN. St. Brown and Williams still combine for 274 targets of gravity, and Detroit went nine-and-eight — the first team out of the NFC field, one year removed from the one seed.

  The price: WR70 at pick one-82. The slot paid 5.2 a game last season; he produced 4.9 on the weirdest usage profile in this range. The market is fronting him a role bump and discounting the touchdown math, which is roughly correct twice. Our verdict: no call. The price already assumes the growth the beat is describing, and the one thing we're certain doesn't repeat — six scores on 16 catches — doesn't need to repeat for WR70 to be fair. The caveat, spoken both ways: if the number-three job comes with real targets, five-eight percent becomes 12 and this price was a gift — and if the role stays red-zone-only, he's a touchdown-or-nothing dart at a dart's price.

  Watch his preseason snap rate with the first offense — that's the whole thesis — then the September target share against last year's 5.8, and whether Petzing keeps feeding him inside the 10. The ratio will regress; the question is what replaces it. If he's one of your guys, this show exists for your whole roster — every player, every week, all season.