There are a lot of Kyle Pitts haters out there. You guys are so impatient. You guys are done with Kyle Pitts. Why?
Because he didn’t come through for you last year, and he only had 1 TD in his rookie season?
First of all, tight ends don’t come on until a little later in their careers. Typically, it takes a couple of years in the league before tight ends really come on. One of the reasons why Kyle Pitts had so much hype around him is because he was probably the best tight end prospect of all time coming into the NFL. And what did he do? He had the most receiving yards of any rookie tight end since Mike Ditka in 1961. 2 yards/route run as a rookie - that was top-3. He did that with Arthur Smith as his head coach.
Last year he had Marcus Mariota throwing him the ball - giving him a catchable ball on only 59% of his targets, when the league average to a tight end is 79%. Credit to Fantasy Life’s Dwain McFarland on that one… he still finished top-6 in yards/route run.
In a bad passing environment, he still was pretty efficient… and because he scored only 1 TD in his rookie year, people want to think he had a bad season and overlook the historic part of it. Aww, but he wasn’t good for fantasy though. Yeah, the 21 year old wasn’t good for fantasy for you… as a tight end. How do we figure out if a player is going to be a good fantasy player? By figuring whether he’s a good football player first.
In his first two seasons, he’s put up the 7th most receiving yards in the first two years of a TE since the year 2000. The TEs who had similar numbers? Mark Andrews, right above him at 6 (he played four more games in that span). The players just beneath Pitts? Antonio Gates and Jason Witten.
And now, he’s going into this third year… he’s 22 years old right now and turns 23 in October. So yeah, we should still be excited about his potential - because he previewed and had a historic season before we should’ve had any expectations of a tight end coming into the NFL.
We have a lot more Kyle Pitts to see, even if you’re out him this year. I get it, there’s a lot of unknown, but I don’t think we can deny the potential for his career. Things can change quick - the Falcons can be a dynamic offense with him, Bijan, Drake London. And if they underperform, Arthur Smith could be out, and these guys would have the chance to be unleashed under a new coaching staff. Let’s be a little patient.