Unlike previous years, the Detroit Lions will only have one attendee at 2025 Tight End University.
Tight End University is an annual event created by NFL legends George Kittle, Travis Kelce, and Greg Olsen. The week-long experience brings current NFL tight ends down to Nashville, Tennessee for a gauntlet of training events, partying, and all-around shenanigans—and it all kicks off on Monday.
In the past, several Detroit Lions players have been regular attendees, but this year, there will just be a single participant from the franchise. According to the Tight End University “Class of 2025” Instagram post, Shane Zylstra will be the only representative for the Lions this year among a class of 72 total players.
Last year, three different Lions attended the festivities : Sam LaPorta, Brock Wright, and Zylstra. A few weeks later, LaPorta spoke about the camp, talking about how nice it was to be recognized by so many of his peers after a strong rookie season in 2023.
“A lot of fun. It was cool to have peers, other tight ends across the league recognize me and say, ‘Hey, you had a fantastic year this year. Rookie tight ends, that’s not usually the case. The year you had, congrats on that,’” LaPorta said. “So it was cool to get acknowledged by a lot of those guys down there, and, of course, we had a lot of fun and learned a couple of things as well.”
This year, LaPorta isn’t there. We don’t know the exact reason why, but it’s worth nothing that the 24-year-old tight end got married just over a week ago . He also left this comment on Tight End University’s latest post:
“Hold down the fort men (specifically @shanezylstra8 )”
So it seems likely that if LaPorta could have gone, he would’ve.
Regardless, it will be a good opportunity for Zylstra, who will be competing for the team’s third-string tight end job against veteran Kenny Yeboah and a pair of undrafted rookies (Zach Horton and Luke Deal).
If you want to follow all of the shenanigans of Tight End University, you can follow their account on Instagram here .