I’m not breaking any news saying that Kyle Pitts’ fantasy outlook in 2024 is looking up after a few down years. But there’s one reason you may not be thinking of that has made me particularly high on Pitts going into redraft season. No, it’s not just because I happened to walk by him at a hotel in South Carolina and didn’t have the guts to say hi, something I’ll regret for the rest of my time on earth. To be fair to myself, I wasn’t 100% sure it was him until I confirmed it via social media, but regardless there are plenty of reasons to be bullish on Pitts for a full and complete breakout. Let’s dig in.
First, let’s get the obvious out of the way. It shouldn’t be understated how much of an upgrade Pitts is getting at quarterback with the Falcons signing Kirk Cousins. Yes, Cousins will be 36 years old when the season starts and is coming off of a torn Achilles injury. However, he showed no signs of aging prior to his Achilles injury, having thrown for 378 yards and two touchdowns the week prior. His 274 yards and two touchdowns against Green Bay on the day of his injury is just another reason to believe Cousins has plenty left in the tank. Sure, recovering from a torn Achilles can limit explosiveness. Thankfully Cousins and explosiveness never quite went hand in hand at any point in his career. Can he still hang in the pocket and deliver the football accurately to his playmakers? As of now, there’s no reason to believe he can’t do that.
The switch to Kirk Cousins is a huge boost for Pitts because of Cousins’ history of being tight-end friendly. Just look at TJ Hockenson last year before he suffered a serious knee injury in December. Sure, Hockenson is ultra-talented on his own, but 95 receptions without playing 15 full games has a lot to do with Cousins valuing an elite tight end as part of his offensive weaponry. Justin Jefferson did miss a decent chunk of time with an injury, but for Pitts there’s not another receiving threat besides Drake London that should rival him for targets and involvement in the offense.
To further the improvements of Pitts’ situation, Arthur Smith’s Falcons offenses produced the second-fewest catchable targets over the past two seasons, while the Vikings with Cousins at the helm averaged the second-most in that same time frame, according to Ryan Heath of fantasypoints.com (and formerly QB List). Pitts himself ranked dead last among 34 tight ends in catchable target rate in 2023. As long as Kirk Cousins is under center, gone are the days of worrying about Pitts’ quarterback situation.
Now that we got to the mostly obvious reasons why Kyle Pitts is once again an attractive option at Tight End, one that we might not be thinking of is we don’t have to chase last year’s points. Or the year before. Pitts is the perfect example of a player to target due to an improved offensive environment that had his numbers suffer due to the prior regime. The 23-year-old hasn’t peaked yet, and in reality, he probably hasn’t even come close to the ceiling that he can reach. Kirk Cousins and new offensive coordinator Zac Robinson, who comes from the Sean McVay coaching tree, can help him get a lot closer to that ceiling than a stubborn Arthur Smith, and below-average to awful quarterback play.
Chasing points in fantasy football is something we all do, let’s be honest. We all want a player we draft to repeat the career year they had last year or a few seasons ago. For example, 49ers WR Deebo Samuel’s 2021 season was a true thing of beauty. 77 receptions for over 1,400 yards with six receiving touchdowns combined with 365 rushing yards and eight touchdowns on the ground show how uniquely special of a player that Samuel is. And yet, in the two seasons since then, the 28-year-old hasn’t really come close to replicating his 2021 season in terms of receptions or yards (both rushing and receiving). More than likely 2021 is going to be Samuel’s peak year, but Kyle Pitts is still searching for that peak year. We can draft Pitts trusting that the combination of his elite-level talent along with the significant improvements of the situation around him can propel the Florida product to a true breakout season the fantasy football community has been starved for.