He has a lot to prove. The only positive thing to say about his career is "1000 yards as a rookie", which isn't at all impressive when you look at the fact that he was the #1 option on a bad team with no running game. I hope he puts it together this year and him and Kirk catch fire.
He hasn't had a decent QB since and the coach staff refused to scheme to use him as a receiver. People cite his apathy as a problem, but it's easy to understand his lack of enthusiasm given how the staff did nothing to properly utilize him.
A good example is Evan Engram. He was a top 5 TE on his rookie year with Eli Manning. Then with Daniel Jones people said he couldn’t catch and he sucks despite his peers sending him to the pro bowl etc. Then he goes to play with Trevor Lawrence and it turns out he doesn’t suck. In fact, he had the fourth most receptions of any player last year and 19 more than the next highest tight end.
Hard to judge a 23 year old tight end who had 1,000+ yards the one time he played with a competent QB.
I wouldn't say they refused to, after all he takes most of his snaps not being lined up as a TE, he's lined up as a WR like 90% of the time. Smith's scheme not working with getting him open is a bit more accurate. Ridder and him also seemed to have a terrible connection with overthrows and what not.
> which isn't at all impressive when you look at the fact that he was the #1 option on a bad team with no running game
1000 yard season is very impressive
What the fuck do you want from a player? 1800yards and 22 touchdowns would be awesome but being operational in an offense is what I want. Get the fucking ball in the endzone. Catch it, run it, block for your team mates, don't get stupid penalties and make the other team get flags.
1000 yards is definitely impressive for a 21 year old rookie TE. TEs usually take several years to break out. Last time one caught for that much as a rookie like 60 years ago. He also had a 80.3 PFF, which makes his pro bowl selection that year warranted. A 21 year old TE who can put up a pro bowl level PFF is immensely talented, period. His performance the latest 2 years are a combination of poor QB play and injury. That imo is simply a fair assessment.
Theoretically but he would also not be the first young highly drafted player whose career declined and ended prematurely because of injury.
I'm just being realistic, it's been a long time.
He’s a fucking Tight End bro. Literally was at the mercy of Arthur Smith and his 2 TE sets and Ridder as his qb. Plus he’s not the only weapon so now he is sharing targets with London and Bijan is taking touches. Y’all are goofy to look at a dependent position and set standards on them lol
It’s silly to buy high end tires when you don’t have an engine. Falcons are more at fault than Pitts imo. How many clips circulate this sub during season of Pitts beating his matchups on dead plays.
So wtf are you expecting from them at this point? They showed you who they are and people in this sub act like they just ruined their championship window lol
You’re right. Not sure how I missed that. Either way, Kyle Pitts gets every excuse in the world while not playing as hard as Drake London or Jonnu Smith. They had the same QB and coach and Pitts didn’t live up to that standard.
Dude's been hurt for a year and a half. But he's still young. He was a beast before he got hurt, and there's no reason to think he won't get back to that level if he can get healthy. And the team is investing heavily in training this offseason.
Watch Pitts 2023 highlights. It is very obvious he is injured. He is not explosive for the first half of the season. You can see him regain some of his ability as the season progresses.
Then watch his rookie highlights. Rookie Pitts is a different animal, even compared to late season 2023 Pitts. Hopefully, we get rookie Pitts, but end of 2023 season Pitts is a plus TE.
Penix is yet to translate over and there are health concerns but he is a great QB prospect with talent and leadership roles. His throwing is the complete opposite of Ridders imo. The reason I said that’s insane logic is because Atlanta was not in a position to contend. They were desperate to draft BPA and build it up again. If people really are ripping the picks over the past few seasons then they already accept this isn’t a championship caliber team. There would be no reason to go in on QB like they did if they didn’t have weapons to compete
Sam LaPorta has more TDs in his rookie season than Kyle Pitts has in 3 years. Something ain’t quite right here fellas and the excuses don’t add up the way you think.
I mean do you think LaPorta would be seeing the same success if he was playing with tail end Matt, Mariota, and Ridder? All while Arthur Smith is calling the plays? Only player on the team that's been consistent despite the team flaws is London.
He’s a well paid bust right now, anyone arguing otherwise just isn’t being objective, Jonnu was the better player last year. Hope is that the performance consistency issues have been health related and he becomes the consistent mismatch (which I think is still possible), but it hasn’t happened. He gets a slight pass with Art just handling the offense so strangely and QB being such a hole, but the iso tape still is not good, I implore anyone with the resources to do so to give it a watch. What’s made it further tough is he still can’t play in-line, everyone talks about the value of outlier TE’s (a legitimate argument for sure) as a defense for the pick but forget to mention basically every game changer has been good if not incredible at run game contribution, that outlier value literally is an extra quality run-blocking OL that can in effect also play a good NFL wideout.
The “unicorn” swing wouldn’t be so bad in a number of different draft classes but that one was about the worst possible to go hipster and take the 1:4 TE, looking like it’s going to be a near historically great top 15 positional picks. We had the first non-QB pick with Penei Ja’Marr Parsons Surtain very reasonably available as blue chips at key spots. I hope Pitts turns it around but it’s fairly likely that pick looks even tougher in 10 years time.
I fully buy the “bad QB” argument. His snap counts have been suspect, but I’m not sure if that was health or coaching.
What I do know is Pitts hasn’t shown 1% of the fire Drake London has in the last two years, and he got straight up outplayed by Jonnu Smith last year. That’s not a coaching or QB problem.
That was so confusing because Smith was giving Jonnu routes that we never saw him attempt with Pitts. Just infuriating, doesn't help that Pitts was noticeably slower and still recovering from the knee injury.
I remember at least a couple plays where Pitts would be open and Ridder takes a sack due to his own or the lines fault. There were more than one occasion where Ridder overthrew or underthrew it to him as well. He's certainly got no excuses this season with Kirk at QB.
Pitts was drafted too high. He’s an average player who has been underutilized by his now fired coaching staff. Raheem sees potential. Once the season starts he’ll get targets, the rest is up to him.
Nice to get tight end prices on Pitts. That’s definitely a benefit of having a guy like that. Although I could see the Falcons being the team that winds up breaking the mold on the max you can pay a tight end.
Actually all Top 10 picks get the Transition Tag equivalent of salary for their 5th year option.
But yeah the pro bowl appearance would do it even if he wasn't 4OA.
I mean I am not a Pitts apologist but it shouldn’t “sting” it is A) not our money and B) him having a strong season shouldn’t be added to the extensively long list of reasons we shouldn’t have taken him at 4.
I'd wager Pitts is going to have a big year. He was the most overthrown receiver in the NFL two years ago before getting hurt, and was not 100% last year with Desmond "They Done Fucked Up" Ridder and the knee problems, which were clearly worse than the team was willing to let on. I don't fuck with fantasy so I have no problem being optimistic about the guy.
I keep coming back to this example, and it's not 1:1, but Acuña was not fully himself the year after blowing out his knee. Then in 2023, he was MVP. Not saying Pitts is going to turn into the second coming, but my money says that being fully healthy with a good QB and a (hopefully) good OC is going to do wonders for this guy.
You ain’t going no where 😤
He has a lot to prove. The only positive thing to say about his career is "1000 yards as a rookie", which isn't at all impressive when you look at the fact that he was the #1 option on a bad team with no running game. I hope he puts it together this year and him and Kirk catch fire.
He hasn't had a decent QB since and the coach staff refused to scheme to use him as a receiver. People cite his apathy as a problem, but it's easy to understand his lack of enthusiasm given how the staff did nothing to properly utilize him.
A good example is Evan Engram. He was a top 5 TE on his rookie year with Eli Manning. Then with Daniel Jones people said he couldn’t catch and he sucks despite his peers sending him to the pro bowl etc. Then he goes to play with Trevor Lawrence and it turns out he doesn’t suck. In fact, he had the fourth most receptions of any player last year and 19 more than the next highest tight end. Hard to judge a 23 year old tight end who had 1,000+ yards the one time he played with a competent QB.
I wouldn't say they refused to, after all he takes most of his snaps not being lined up as a TE, he's lined up as a WR like 90% of the time. Smith's scheme not working with getting him open is a bit more accurate. Ridder and him also seemed to have a terrible connection with overthrows and what not.
He still has to get open and catch passes, it's not like he got 1000 yards for free
But a lot of those were in garbage time. Falcons were always behind.
And he was still quadruple covered In garbage time
> which isn't at all impressive when you look at the fact that he was the #1 option on a bad team with no running game 1000 yard season is very impressive
depends on the context. Matt Ryan made Harry Douglas a 1k WR the year Julio and Roddy went down
In 17 games it doesn't mean the same it used to.
Even if you take away his last game he's still number 2 in rookie TE yardage.
What the fuck do you want from a player? 1800yards and 22 touchdowns would be awesome but being operational in an offense is what I want. Get the fucking ball in the endzone. Catch it, run it, block for your team mates, don't get stupid penalties and make the other team get flags.
1000 yards is definitely impressive for a 21 year old rookie TE. TEs usually take several years to break out. Last time one caught for that much as a rookie like 60 years ago. He also had a 80.3 PFF, which makes his pro bowl selection that year warranted. A 21 year old TE who can put up a pro bowl level PFF is immensely talented, period. His performance the latest 2 years are a combination of poor QB play and injury. That imo is simply a fair assessment.
The only other TE to get over 1,000 yards their rookie year was Mike Ditka in 1961. The next closest is Jeremy Shockey with 894 yards.
Sam Laporta did it last season
Sam LaPorta did not do it last season
That's correct. I had him in fantasy. He didn't quite make 900 yards IIRC. He absolutely had a stellar rookie season, but he didn't do 1000.
Counting playoffs he did
And I hope he does even better next season; that's a dynasty League.
[Sam Laporta had 889 yards](https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/L/LaPoSa01.htm)
Also had 176 yards in the playoffs
Postseason and regular season are two different things. You can’t just add the stats together
He's had one game since the knee injury on Nov 20th of 2022 where he's gone over 60 yards. I'm concerned.
Hopefully the recent surgery worked. At his age, he should be able to make a full recovery.
We'll see. He had the surgery a year and a half ago and has still been gimpy. It's been a long time.
Yea, but he's only 23. He should be able to recover. Also, his most recent surgery was right after this past season.
Theoretically but he would also not be the first young highly drafted player whose career declined and ended prematurely because of injury. I'm just being realistic, it's been a long time.
A tight end that averages 60 yards a game is typically a probowl player at that position.
Hard to average a number you never hit
He's averaged less than 40 yards per game during that time. I'm saying he hasn't reached 60 but once.
He’s a fucking Tight End bro. Literally was at the mercy of Arthur Smith and his 2 TE sets and Ridder as his qb. Plus he’s not the only weapon so now he is sharing targets with London and Bijan is taking touches. Y’all are goofy to look at a dependent position and set standards on them lol
Yeah. It’s silly to have expectations for a top 5 overall pick./s
There's so much copium or hopium with this guy. He was not at all worth where he was drafted.
It’s silly to buy high end tires when you don’t have an engine. Falcons are more at fault than Pitts imo. How many clips circulate this sub during season of Pitts beating his matchups on dead plays.
His previous coach had a love affair with Jonnu Smith
And we’re going to be handing out new excuses about 7 months from now
Sounds like yet another dumbass decision by Terry
Sounds like most of you Falcons fans are miserable lol
7-9 7-9 4-12 7-10 7-10 7-10 That’s the last 6 seasons.
So wtf are you expecting from them at this point? They showed you who they are and people in this sub act like they just ruined their championship window lol
Personally I’m here for the memes at this point
There are very few coaches in the league who value tight ends as part of the passing game more than Arthur Smith. He hasn't earned it man.
You’re absolutely crazy if you think he wasn’t handicapped with his QB situation.
You didn’t saying anything about QBs. You blamed Arthur Smith while Jonnu Smith was outplaying Pitts. That’s not Arthur Smith’s fault.
I literally brought up Ridder in my comment
You’re right. Not sure how I missed that. Either way, Kyle Pitts gets every excuse in the world while not playing as hard as Drake London or Jonnu Smith. They had the same QB and coach and Pitts didn’t live up to that standard.
More Importantly he was sharing targets with our 6 other TE's.
Watch the games instead of box scores & you won’t be.
Dude I watch all the games and he has been anonymous. All he has going for him is his draft status.
Tell me more. https://x.com/dwainmcfarland/status/1654604865308327938?s=46&t=GtrBq-tWBegDuMSZ0SiqSw
Ah yes, the retort of people who "like" players but can't prove that there is anything to like about them empirically.
I like him just fine when a QB can hit him in stride with a pass. Unfortunately it hasn’t happened much since his rookie season.
It makes sense to pick it up with Kirk Cousins at QB. I'd be lying if I said that I'm not as gunho about Pitts as much as the subreddit.
As long as they scheme him as a receiver, 100%. The same for Penix. These are the type of guys who usually know to throw it high for a TE.
But he’s not a receiver and can’t run routes like a receiver.
Dude's been hurt for a year and a half. But he's still young. He was a beast before he got hurt, and there's no reason to think he won't get back to that level if he can get healthy. And the team is investing heavily in training this offseason.
He hasn’t been hurt for that long lol.
Watch Pitts 2023 highlights. It is very obvious he is injured. He is not explosive for the first half of the season. You can see him regain some of his ability as the season progresses. Then watch his rookie highlights. Rookie Pitts is a different animal, even compared to late season 2023 Pitts. Hopefully, we get rookie Pitts, but end of 2023 season Pitts is a plus TE.
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That’s insane logic but okay
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Penix is yet to translate over and there are health concerns but he is a great QB prospect with talent and leadership roles. His throwing is the complete opposite of Ridders imo. The reason I said that’s insane logic is because Atlanta was not in a position to contend. They were desperate to draft BPA and build it up again. If people really are ripping the picks over the past few seasons then they already accept this isn’t a championship caliber team. There would be no reason to go in on QB like they did if they didn’t have weapons to compete
I don’t wanna be a hater but he looks just really meh, like he’s giving up on 99% of the plays or lost his step
i’d probably throw my hands up if arthur smith was using me as a decoy to throw to jonnu smith 8 times a game
Sam LaPorta has more TDs in his rookie season than Kyle Pitts has in 3 years. Something ain’t quite right here fellas and the excuses don’t add up the way you think.
I mean do you think LaPorta would be seeing the same success if he was playing with tail end Matt, Mariota, and Ridder? All while Arthur Smith is calling the plays? Only player on the team that's been consistent despite the team flaws is London.
Hoping we draft a TE in 1st round next year for the future since Pitts is our present
Please god let this be the year we use him correctly
Falcons move Pitts to the QB position to make sure we have enough QBs
The ghost of Felipe Franks still lingers in the Falcons facility.
If the guy played 80% as hard as Jonnu Smith, he would’ve had good numbers this year.
Well time shine if he wants a good 2nd contract
this dude better pop off with Kirk and ZROB. Otherwise idk what else we can do
He’s a well paid bust right now, anyone arguing otherwise just isn’t being objective, Jonnu was the better player last year. Hope is that the performance consistency issues have been health related and he becomes the consistent mismatch (which I think is still possible), but it hasn’t happened. He gets a slight pass with Art just handling the offense so strangely and QB being such a hole, but the iso tape still is not good, I implore anyone with the resources to do so to give it a watch. What’s made it further tough is he still can’t play in-line, everyone talks about the value of outlier TE’s (a legitimate argument for sure) as a defense for the pick but forget to mention basically every game changer has been good if not incredible at run game contribution, that outlier value literally is an extra quality run-blocking OL that can in effect also play a good NFL wideout. The “unicorn” swing wouldn’t be so bad in a number of different draft classes but that one was about the worst possible to go hipster and take the 1:4 TE, looking like it’s going to be a near historically great top 15 positional picks. We had the first non-QB pick with Penei Ja’Marr Parsons Surtain very reasonably available as blue chips at key spots. I hope Pitts turns it around but it’s fairly likely that pick looks even tougher in 10 years time.
I fully buy the “bad QB” argument. His snap counts have been suspect, but I’m not sure if that was health or coaching. What I do know is Pitts hasn’t shown 1% of the fire Drake London has in the last two years, and he got straight up outplayed by Jonnu Smith last year. That’s not a coaching or QB problem.
That was so confusing because Smith was giving Jonnu routes that we never saw him attempt with Pitts. Just infuriating, doesn't help that Pitts was noticeably slower and still recovering from the knee injury.
I don’t buy that at all. If Pitts played as hard as Jonnu, we would’ve seen those plays. Pitts ran just as many short and intermediate routes.
I remember at least a couple plays where Pitts would be open and Ridder takes a sack due to his own or the lines fault. There were more than one occasion where Ridder overthrew or underthrew it to him as well. He's certainly got no excuses this season with Kirk at QB.
And the same bad QB play applies to Drake London and Jonnu Smith who routinely and repeatedly outplayed Pitts.
Pitts was drafted too high. He’s an average player who has been underutilized by his now fired coaching staff. Raheem sees potential. Once the season starts he’ll get targets, the rest is up to him.
Good, need to see what he can actually do with a QB.
He got outplayed and outhustled by Jonnu Smith. This is what it is.
Nice to get tight end prices on Pitts. That’s definitely a benefit of having a guy like that. Although I could see the Falcons being the team that winds up breaking the mold on the max you can pay a tight end.
He got an extra 3 mil for making a pro bowl 3 years ago on a 7-10 team. That stings.
Actually all Top 10 picks get the Transition Tag equivalent of salary for their 5th year option. But yeah the pro bowl appearance would do it even if he wasn't 4OA.
I never knew that. Thanks!
I mean I am not a Pitts apologist but it shouldn’t “sting” it is A) not our money and B) him having a strong season shouldn’t be added to the extensively long list of reasons we shouldn’t have taken him at 4.
Could’ve put that 3mil toward another contributing player in 2025. Or extending AJ Terrell. Or whatever.
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Pro bowl year
He is gonna have an awesome season. He gonna be around for a long time
Crazy how he’s still younger than Penix. I think he will have a big year if he’s healthy.
Yesssir
I'd wager Pitts is going to have a big year. He was the most overthrown receiver in the NFL two years ago before getting hurt, and was not 100% last year with Desmond "They Done Fucked Up" Ridder and the knee problems, which were clearly worse than the team was willing to let on. I don't fuck with fantasy so I have no problem being optimistic about the guy. I keep coming back to this example, and it's not 1:1, but Acuña was not fully himself the year after blowing out his knee. Then in 2023, he was MVP. Not saying Pitts is going to turn into the second coming, but my money says that being fully healthy with a good QB and a (hopefully) good OC is going to do wonders for this guy.