Kyle Pitts Fantasy Autopsy: What Killed His Season And Where Should We Draft Him in 2023?

Kyle Pitts was arguably 2022’s biggest bust in fantasy football, because despite his underwhelming rookie season, his obvious, freakish talent remained tantalizing and the history of rookie TEs succeeding is almost non-existent. With a full season under his belt and a new offense being put in, surely it’ll be designed around one of the NFL’s most potentially unique and dominant weapons. RIGHT??? Well, the fact we’re doing a fantasy autopsy on Kyle Pitts’ season means that he let us down again, so let’s dive in and see whether we are just too high on this guy, or if there’s hope yet for him to become a fantasy cornerstone.

Pitts was a Top 35 pick last season, and while he only played in 10 games in 2022, his final output – 28 receptions, 356 yards, two touchdowns – are putrid enough in a 10-game span to start wondering if something is deeply wrong with Pitts as a player. Those numbers are hard to fathom on their own, but really dissecting them is pretty disgusting. Pitts caught two or fewer passes in half of his games last year, never caught more than five, never hit 90 yards receiving and posted zero multi-touchdown games. For most TEs, numbers like this in Year 2 after a rookie season with only one touchdown –albeit also a 1,000-yard campaign – they’d be off the radar. But Pitts’ athleticism pops off the screen if you watch, and there are compelling factors that clearly hindered his ability to flourish.

The most glaring is Atlanta’s offensive philosophy; Arthur Smith came over from the Tennessee Titans where he engineered a very capable offense that focused on Derrick Henry at RB. Coming to Atlanta, most of us assumed he’d shift the ratios of run to pass based on having Pitts and rookie WR Drake London, and also having a motley crew of RBs led by a converted receiver (Cordarrelle Patterson). Nope! Atlanta threw the second-fewest passes in the NFL last season, totaled the second-fewest passing yards and tied for the sixth-fewest passing touchdowns. The only team that threw for fewer yards and attempted fewer passes were the Chicago Bears, who had one of the NFL’s best rushing QBs in Justin Fields, and tailored the offense around his electric skills. Atlanta spent most of the year with Marcus Mariota at the helm, so this rushing volume was handled by Patterson, Tyler Allgeier (6th-round rookie) and Caleb Huntley (undrafted rookie). That hardly seems like an ideal allocation of touches, but the coaching staff hasn’t changed, so keep that in mind.

Atlanta also saw a steep downgrade in quality at QB, going from longtime starter Matt Ryan to Mariota and rookie Desmond Ridder. The QB play was predictably awful, with Mariota finishing outside the Top 25 at the position per PFF and Desmond Ridder grading out even worse than Mariota in four games of action. Atlanta has not meaningfully addressed the position yet in free agency, bringing in Taylor Heinicke to compete with Ridder while letting Mariota leave to the Eagles. The Falcons pick 8th in this draft, so there’s virtually no chance of them getting C.J. Stroud or Bryce Young without an asset-draining trade, and beyond them the QBs of note are not considered NFL-ready. Lastly, the Falcons had the sixth-worst pass blocking line in 2022 per Football Outsiders, and had the league’s sixth-worst adjusted sack rate (8.7%) to match. The shoddy blocking and steep drop in QB play can explain Pitts’ precipitous drops in yards per reception, which went from 15.1 to 12.7 and yards per target, which fell from 9.3 to 6.0. Low volume plus poor target quality almost always equals a bad season for a pass-catcher. As talented as Pitts is, he’s not an exception to these universal laws.

Everything about this offense seemed like it was borderline designed to frustrate Pitts’ ability to make an impact, including the selection of Drake London in the first round of the 2022 Draft. London was an excellent pick; he graded as PFF’s 11th-best receiver last season, led the team in targets (117), yards (866) and tied for the team lead in receiving touchdowns (4). London clearly ate into opportunities that could’ve belonged to Pitts, especially in the red zone. All four of London’s touchdowns came from inside 15 yards, and three of them were inside 10 yards.

So, what do you do with Pitts in this draft? Tight end is usually a pretty bad position, so gaining a weekly advantage there is always nice. Pitts absolutely has the talent to do it, and even in his rookie season, which I called disappointing, he did eclipse 1,000 yards which had previously only been done once by Mike Ditka. So even though he was a bit underwhelming in Year 1 and an absolute sinkhole last season, Pitts is still a TE I’d view as someone capable of being a locked and loaded weekly play. We will need to see if the ADP cools off significantly from Top 35 though, because if it’s anywhere near that then he has to be a stay away.

I remain a believer in the talent, but that’s only part of the equation. The Falcons have publicly ruled themselves out for trading for Lamar Jackson, so a big time QB upgrade isn’t likely. Barring a trade to snag Young or Stroud, who are still rookies, it’s looking like a camp battle between Taylor Heinicke and Ridder. With those options, and Arthur Smith still in the head coach’s office, this is once again going to be a run, run, run offense with poor target quality when they do throw the ball. He’ll still also have to compete with Drake London, who is a similar player in terms of size and skill set, and very well may just be a superior pass-catcher. While I like Pitts, without a massive upgrade at QB, I am skeptical of him eclipsing Travis Kelce, Mark Andrews, George Kittle or Dallas Goedert, or even entering that class of TE.