If you asked some fans how the 2025 Detroit Lions scored inside the 20, they'd probably say the same thing: hand it to Jahmyr Gibbs, hand it to David Montgomery, run it down your throat.

The data says something almost the opposite. In the red zone, Detroit was a passing team in 2025 — and a genuinely elite one. And the most efficient target on the roster wasn't Amon-Ra St. Brown, wasn't Sam LaPorta, wasn't Gibbs on a wheel route. It was a rookie almost nobody outside of Detroit is talking about: third-round pick Isaac TeSlaa.

Table of Contents

1. Detroit's red-zone identity was passing, not pounding
2. TeSlaa's absurd per-target line
3. What TeSlaa was actually doing (hint: not tush pushes)
4. Why this matters

1. Detroit's red-zone identity was passing, not pounding

Inside the 20 in the 2025 regular season, the Lions:

• Threw the ball on 53.2% of red-zone plays (101 pass attempts vs. 89 runs), slightly above the league red-zone pass rate of 51.2%.
• Averaged +0.216 EPA/play on those red-zone dropbacks — 2nd in the NFL, trailing only San Francisco (+0.427) and just ahead of Miami (+0.183).
• Scored 26 passing touchdowns in the red zone on those 101 attempts.

Their red-zone rushing? Perfectly fine — +0.064 EPA/play, 13th in the league — but nowhere near their aerial number. In other words, the gap between how well Detroit threw it inside the 20 and how well they ran it inside the 20 was one of the widest disconnects in the league in favor of the pass.

For comparison, the "smashmouth" caricature of this offense fits a team like Washington (+0.232 red-zone rush EPA/play, 1st) or Denver (+0.195, 3rd) far better than it fits Detroit.

2. TeSlaa's absurd per-target line

In the red zone in 2025, Isaac TeSlaa was targeted 11 times. He caught 7 of them. Six were touchdowns.

That's a 54.5% TD-per-target rate, and among the 40+ receivers who saw at least 10 red-zone targets last season, only Dallas Goedert's ridiculous 10-for-15 (66.7%) beat him. TeSlaa's +1.254 EPA/target in the red zone ranked 3rd in the NFL in that same 10+ target group, behind only George Kittle (+1.524) and Tucker Kraft (+1.272).

Now stack his six red-zone touchdowns against the wide receivers people actually write columns about:

TeSlaa tied Smith-Njigba's red-zone TD total on 11 targets vs. 17, beat Nacua's five on six fewer targets, and lapped Justin Jefferson three-to-one on fewer looks. His EPA/target more than doubled Chase's and Nacua's, and Smith-Njigba's red-zone EPA/target was actually negative.

To be clear about what this is and isn't: TeSlaa's full-season line was 27 targets, 16 catches, 239 yards, 6 TDs. Every touchdown he scored in 2025 came inside the opponent's 20. He is not the WR1 of this offense — this is Amon-Ra's team, and he saw more than three times as many red-zone targets. But on a per-look basis in the highest-leverage part of the field, TeSlaa was one of the most productive receivers in football.

3. What TeSlaa was actually doing

Here's where the story sharpens up. TeSlaa's six red-zone touchdowns weren't sneaks or one-yard shovel passes — every single one was a legitimate downfield target. His TD receptions came from these snap distances (yardline_100 on the play):

• Week 1 vs. GB — 13-yard TD
• Week 5 vs. CIN — 12-yard TD
• Week 13 vs. GB — 17-yard TD
• Week 14 vs. DAL — 12-yard TD
• Week 16 vs. PIT — 20-yard TD (edge of the red zone)
• Week 17 vs. MIN — 4-yard TD

Air yards equal yardage gained on every one — meaning zero YAC, zero screen work. Goff threw it, TeSlaa caught it in the end zone. Five of the six came from between the 12- and 20-yard line, which is fade / back-shoulder / seam territory. That's a specific role — a big-bodied end-zone target on the edge of the red zone, the kind of piece Detroit historically deployed Josh Reynolds and (in a very different way) Marvin Jones for.

Inside the 10, TeSlaa saw just 3 targets and hauled in 1 TD; inside the 5, 2 targets, 1 TD. That's where Gibbs (5 red-zone receiving TDs on 15 targets, +0.862 EPA/target) and St. Brown do their work. TeSlaa's zone was the outer band of the red zone, where defenses widen out and there's room to attack a corner one-on-one.

4. Why this matters

One: the offensive identity narrative around Detroit is behind the data. The Lions ranked 2nd in the NFL in red-zone passing EPA/play, 13th in red-zone rushing EPA/play, and passed slightly more than the league average inside the 20. If you're modeling this team — for spreads, for player props, for fantasy — treating them as a run-first goal-line offense is going to consistently underweight the passing game exactly where scoring is most concentrated.

Two: TeSlaa's per-target efficiency is not sustainable, but the role probably is. A 54.5% TD-per-target rate is the kind of number that regresses hard — no receiver in the NFL sustained that on real volume. But the usage — a rookie 6'4" third-rounder being deployed as the designated red-zone downfield target for a top-two red-zone passing offense — that's the kind of role that tends to stick and scale. If Detroit gives TeSlaa 20-25 red-zone targets in 2026 instead of 11, I'd expect the per-target rate to fall meaningfully while the raw touchdown count still climbs. That is a very specific, very quiet bet worth watching once we see summer depth-chart language and preseason usage.

The point is: everybody is looking at the Chases, Nacuas, and Smith-Njigbas of the world when they think about red-zone weapons. In 2025, on a per-target basis, none of them were as productive inside the 20 as the rookie in Detroit no one is writing about. That deserves at least one column.