Brad Holmes selected Isaac TeSlaa in the third round of the 2025 NFL Draft with one goal in mind: to turn the Arkansas wideout into the Lions’ third receiver behind Amon-Ra St. Brown and Jameson Williams.
Dan Campbell even outed himself as a member of the TeSlaa bandwagon before the season.
As a rookie, TeSlaa showed some promise, catching 16 passes for 239 yards and six touchdowns, and he was expected to take that next step in Year 2, but he’s off to a rocky start.
In the Lions’ Week 1 win over the Saints, Detroit needed every bit of help it could get from its receivers. St. Brown caught 10 passes for 67 yards and the go-ahead touchdown in overtime. Williams struggled with some drops against the Saints, but he still had four catches for 45 yards, including a big reception late that put the Lions in prime position to score a touchdown.
Outside of those two, no other wide receiver caught a pass. Yes, that includes TeSlaa.
The second-year receiver was criticized heavily during the preseason because he turned into a ghost and disappeared far too many times on offense, and the same happened in Week 1 against the Saints. In 39 pass attempts, TeSlaa was targeted just one (!!) time and didn’t record a single reception. Simply put, that’s not good. Actually, that’s a really bad sign.
The Isaac TeSlaa alarm bells are deafening
Alarm bells are ringing because the Lions just don’t have the receiver depth to handle an off game for St. Brown or Williams. The latter had one, and yet no one stepped up to help out other than St. Brown, and he can only do so much on his own.
Not many NFL teams can win a game with just two receivers catching passes and the presumed WR3 going reception-less.
Luckily for Detroit, it drew New Orleans in the opener. That’s not going to fly against the Buffalo Bills on Thursday night or against any one of the Lions’ three division rivals.
Not having a clear WR3 could be the difference between the Lions being Super Bowl contenders (21-0 lead against the Saints) and Detroit completely missing the playoffs (getting outscored 30-10 by the Saints in the final 20 minutes of regulation and overtime.
It’s possible that Jared Goff just didn’t look TeSlaa’s way a bunch and trusted his veteran receivers more, but one target in nearly 40 pass attempts as the WR3 is concerning.
The low PFF grade proves that it wasn’t just Goff not looking his way.
The Lions have to figure this out before a lack of receiver depth costs them a Super Bowl run.
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