Sam LaPorta Camp Update — August 16: Cleared, Terrific, and Shaking Rust

Sam LaPorta is practicing, and the team's own reporter just called him terrific. That word is from Tim Twentyman at DetroitLions.com, relayed through NBC Sports' player news on August 12, and it lands on a player who was cleared for training camp at the start of the window coming off back surgery, per Yardbarker's report when camp opened. Pride of Detroit's camp notes this window headlined him as starting to shake rust. Nothing in this week's reporting contradicts the clearance.

Remember where the June preview left this. LaPorta's herniated disc ended his season after nine games last November, on the operating table. We said the role was real, a proven top-shelf tight end in one of football's best offenses, with 40 catches in those nine games and a touchdown rate low enough to suggest more scores were coming, not fewer. But the entire swing factor was the back. As of June minicamp he had not practiced since the surgery, was limited to walk-throughs all spring, and Dan Campbell grouped him with the still-mending. Not cleared was the operative phrase, and we told you the first checkpoint was simple: does he practice when camp opens?

He did. That gate is passed, and the reporting since has been the right kind of boring, a rehabbed player working his way back into form with the beat describing progress rather than setbacks. The honest limits of the evidence: shaking rust is a phrase that contains rust, he sat out Thursday's preseason opener in Cincinnati along with most starters, and whether the explosiveness is fully back cannot be answered by practice notes. The June caveats that were never about the back also still stand. It is a contract year with nothing signed, he is learning Drew Petzing's new offense, and he shares the field with St. Brown, Williams and Gibbs, a room that supports his quality and caps his volume at once.

Does the June read hold? CONFIRMED — the whole question was the back, the first checkpoint was the camp practice window, and he cleared it with the beat trending positive ever since.

What we check next: whether LaPorta plays against Washington on August 22, and any glimpse of his movement and target work in a live setting, the only place the explosiveness question actually gets answered. We'll check next Sunday.

_Data via nflverse._