Eric Ebron still isn’t seeing many targets

Last year the Detroit Lions drafted Eric Ebron in the first round with the expectation that he would be able to create even more mismatches for an offense that already had a pair of really good pass-catchers in Calvin Johnson and Golden Tate.

But he didn’t see all that much action in 2014, as the Lions only targeted him 46 times the entire season — 28th in the league among tight ends. He was lined up in the slot 52 percent of the time, but was only targeted 19 times from that position, as Detroit was far more willing to target their running backs than they were Ebron.

Ebron figured to see more targets this season, but so far in the preseason he has only been thrown at twice. That could change these next two weeks or in the regular season, but with the addition of second-round pick Ameer Abdullah at running back to pair with Joique Bell, and the return to health of Johnson (not to mention Tate, who is coming off of a breakout season), there might not be a ton of targets to go around.

So long as the team is winning, Ebron’s workload won’t matter — but to this point the Lions haven’t seen the type of return on investment you’d expect in a top-10 draft pick.