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Sam LaPorta owners: your guy is projected under himself

Every tight end on our Week 8 card sits below his own season average, and the size of the gap is the interesting part.

If you own Sam LaPorta, you’re about to see a number that looks like an insult: 12.48 full-PPR points for Week 8, against the 15.32 he averages per game this season. Before you post a screenshot in the league chat, know that he isn’t being picked on. Every tight end on our card is projected under his own average, Brock Bowers and Travis Kelce included. So what does that mean for your Sunday? It means a number under a season average works like a price, not a verdict, and the real question is how your options compare with each other. We wrote these numbers down Friday morning, before kickoff, so you can hold us to them once the games are played. One tight end is projected a lot further under his average than the rest, and it isn’t LaPorta. Start with the table below.

All five tight ends on the card sit under their averages

These are live desk numbers, not yet sealed.

Bowers sits 5.74 under, the widest gap on the card, and Warren sits 1.79 under, the narrowest. We haven’t tested why the whole card lines up this way, so we won’t guess at a cause.

But one week is a snapshot, so look at how LaPorta’s numbers have moved. He has been on this card three times this season. In Week 5 we had him at 10.11 against an average of 11.47, a gap of 1.36. In Week 7 the card read 11.21 against 15.32, a gap of 4.11. This week it’s 12.48 against 15.32, a gap of 2.84.

Between Weeks 5 and 7 his average jumped 3.85 points (15.32 minus 11.47), while our card number moved 1.10 (11.21 minus 10.11). So the gap was widest in Week 7, because his average rose more than our number did.

These are three points, Week 6 is missing, and the Week 7 figure is the card number rather than the sealed 12.73, so we draw no trend from them.

Why a good tight end can be projected under himself

That raises the obvious question: why would we project a good player below his own average? Because a season average is a record of games already played, and our number is a read of this week. They don’t have to agree, and we haven’t measured why they differ here.

Here’s the catch: the same sealed row carried a “startable” flag even though our number was below his average. That flag is a screen on the numbers, not an instruction.

That’s why a projection under a season average is a price, not a sit call. People treat a short sample as if it already shows the true rate, which psychologists call the law of small numbers. A 15.32 average feels like who LaPorta is. It is one piece of evidence, not a promise.

Which means the real question is how your options compare with each other, not how a player compares with his own past. Our start/sit tool is built to maximise your chance of winning the matchup, not your raw points. Whether 12.48 is the right choice depends on your matchup: a favourite and an underdog weigh points and variance differently, and the call is yours. Our numbers are weekly, so we offer no rest-of-season projection.

What we can’t say yet

But a few limits ride on these numbers. The Week 8 numbers are live desk numbers, written Fri Oct 23 at 9:08 AM ET, and not yet sealed as of Saturday, October 24. We have no 2026 results, so nothing here says anyone was right or wrong. The Week 7 card read 11.21 while the sealed Week 7 number is 12.73, and we score only the sealed copy.

Send this to the league chat if someone is nervous about a tight end: “All five TEs on the card are projected under their own averages this week. The gap is a price, not a verdict.”

Source: ProDraftStats desk.