Isaac TeSlaa — Week 1: One Target, First Quarter, Incomplete
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Monday, Sep 14
TeSlaa was thrown to once Sunday — first and ten at the Detroit thirty-five with seven thirty-four left in the first quarter, scoreless, short left, incomplete — and not again in a game Detroit threw thirty-nine times. Amon-Ra St. Brown had fourteen targets, Jameson Williams nine, Sam LaPorta eight, in a 31–30 overtime win over the Saints.
When Isaac TeSlaa's week moves the numbers, you'll know — every episode, in one weekly email.
The full episode, in writing
Isaac TeSlaa's afternoon in the play-by-play is one line. First and 10 at the Detroit 35, seven 34 left in the first quarter, nothing to nothing, Jared Goff short left to TeSlaa, incomplete, with Chase Young credited on the play. It was worth −0.6 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position — and the next snap was a 19-yard throw to Sam LaPorta on second and 15. Detroit threw 38 more passes after that first-quarter incompletion, through four quarters and an overtime, and none of them went to TeSlaa.
The line is one target, no catches, no yards. There is nothing else to retell, so the football in this episode is where the 39 throws went instead: 14 to Amon-Ra St. Brown, who caught 10 for 67 and both Detroit passing touchdowns, including the four-yarder that won it in overtime; nine to Jameson Williams, four caught for 45, with the 22-yard overtime catch to the five; eight to LaPorta, five caught for 48; five to Jahmyr Gibbs, all caught; and one each to TeSlaa, Brock Wright and Sione Vaki. Two receivers, a tight end and a running back took 36 of the 39 throws, and the only wide receiver target that did not go to St. Brown or Williams was the one to TeSlaa.
That is a passing game with three places for the ball to go, and Sunday the Lions did not need a fourth. Gibbs carried 29 times for a hundred 56, so the offense had 33 runs to go with the 39 throws, and the overtime drive that won it was 10 plays with six Gibbs touches and throws to LaPorta, Gibbs, Williams and St. Brown. 19 pass plays before halftime and 21 after — the passing game got no larger as the game got closer, and the target order did not change.
Back in June the preview had TeSlaa at WR78 across 14 games, with very little target volume and no sustained role. Sunday's one target reads like that line. It is a single game, and a single game with one throw is not evidence of anything except that the order in front of him held for one afternoon. Detroit is at the Bills on Thursday the seventeenth. The number to watch is whether it stays one.
_Data via nflverse._
When Isaac TeSlaa's week moves the numbers, you'll know — every episode, in one weekly email.
Keep going