Sam LaPorta a Secret Weapon? Drew Petzing’s Arrival Boosts Lions’ TE1 Potential

The Lions took a step back in 2025 after dominating during the 2024 regular season following the loss of elite play-caller Ben Johnson (who left for Chicago). So they went back to the drawing board this offseason and hired former Cardinals offensive coordinator Drew Petzing. An exciting scheme is coming to Detroit and one player stands to benefit most from this addition.

Dave Richard has ranked all 18 new play-callers from worst for Fantasy to best, and we're going team by team through his rankings to see how your perception of every key player should change before Fantasy football draft season. Up next at No. 2: Drew Petzing and the Lions.

Who's new?

Ex-Cardinals playcaller Drew Petzing has arrived. The former coaching colleague of Ben Johnson, Norv Turner, Kevin Stefanski and current Lions O-line coach Hank Fraley, Petzing has three years of playcalling experience.

What's expected this year?

Petzing was, at worst, top-six in multi-TE personnel sets in each of his three years in Arizona and his tight ends saw at least a 33.1% target share annually. His running backs had a target share of at least 18.2% in each of the past two seasons, while wideouts didn't reach a 48% target share in either of the past two seasons. Was this Petzing building around the strength of his best players (in this case, Trey McBride ) as his M.O. suggests, or was it because Petzing is just locked into tight ends being a pass-game staple? Petzing shared in an interview that he scrapped the Cardinals' wide-zone run game for more gap-scheme concepts and it worked. That's an example of him fitting players' strengths into the game plans. The Lions are already good at running the ball, so it's fair to expect that to remain the case this year. Petzing fell just short of a 56% pass rate in 2023 and 2024, then reached 59.6% with Kyler, and finally a ridiculous 68.5% with Brissett in 2025. Dan Campbell's Lions have never had a pass rate higher than 59.6% (his first year) and have gotten as low as 52.2% (2024).

Winners and losers for Fantasy

There's just too much evidence to believe in Sam LaPorta . Petzing's sky-high usage of multiple-TE sets will keep him on the field a lot. Under Petzing, McBride went from 6.2 to 9.9 targets per game from 2023-25, with his PPR production also jumping from 10.7 to 18.9 points per game in that span. In the 24 career games LaPorta has seen six-plus targets, he's scored 10-plus PPR points 21 times and 13-plus PPR points 18 times. That's a wow. But in those 24 games when LaPorta has done well, Jameson Williams has been a non-factor all but five times. Heck, there have been just 10 career games when both have had six-plus targets. Petzing's arrival might mean a lot of inconsistent target volume and stats for Williams. The rest of the Lions' studs shouldn't be too affected by Petzing. Maybe there's a teeny dip in overall targets for Amon-Ra St. Brown , but he's been too reliable and too important to Jared Goff to expect a disappointing season. Jahmyr Gibbs remains the best possible candidate for 1.01 in any one-QB league, especially since no one on the roster is positioned to take him off the field at the goal line.

Add CBS Sports on Google Join the Conversation comments

_Originally reported by [CBS Sports](https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/football/news/lions-play-caller-drew-petzing-fantasy-football-outlook-2026/)._