I won’t be drafting George Kittle this year. I don’t like the injury history, and I don’t like the potential for that passing game to slip a notch (or two) with Trey Lance at the controls. I will concede, however, that Kittle is a heck of a player.
Kittle is a ferocious blocker, embracing being a complete player. On the one hand, that’s cool. But at the same time, it might give him a better chance of staying healthy if he were involved in fewer collision. He misses time every year.
Kittle also does a better job of getting downfield than other tight ends. He’s consistently averaging 12-plus yards per catch, and he’s doing it despite also catching a high percentage of balls.
If you marry those stats together, Kittle has averaged at least 9 yards per target four years in a row. Since 2018, only 13 other tight ends with at least 50 targets have averaged 9 yards per target, and nobody else has done it more than twice.
AVERAGING 9 YARDS PER PASS PLAY (last 4 yrs) | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Year | Player | Tgt | Rec | Yds | TD | YPT |
2018 | Mark Andrews, Balt. | 50 | 34 | 552 | 3 | 11.0 |
2021 | Dallas Goedert, Phil. | 76 | 56 | 830 | 4 | 10.9 |
2019 | Jared Cook, N.O. | 65 | 43 | 705 | 9 | 10.8 |
2018 | George Kittle, S.F. | 136 | 88 | 1377 | 5 | 10.1 |
2020 | George Kittle, S.F. | 63 | 48 | 634 | 2 | 10.1 |
2020 | Robert Tonyan, G.B. | 59 | 52 | 586 | 11 | 9.9 |
2019 | George Kittle, S.F. | 107 | 85 | 1053 | 5 | 9.8 |
2019 | Darren Waller, Oak. | 117 | 90 | 1145 | 3 | 9.8 |
2020 | Travis Kelce, K.C. | 145 | 105 | 1416 | 11 | 9.8 |
2021 | George Kittle, S.F. | 94 | 71 | 910 | 6 | 9.7 |
2018 | Rob Gronkowski, N.E. | 72 | 47 | 682 | 3 | 9.5 |
2021 | Kyle Pitts, Atl. | 110 | 68 | 1026 | 1 | 9.3 |
2019 | Travis Kelce, K.C. | 136 | 97 | 1229 | 5 | 9.0 |
2018 | Evan Engram, NYG | 64 | 45 | 577 | 3 | 9.0 |
2021 | Rob Gronkowski, T.B. | 89 | 55 | 802 | 6 | 9.0 |
2018 | Chris Herndon, NYJ | 56 | 39 | 502 | 4 | 9.0 |
2021 | David Njoku, Cle. | 53 | 36 | 475 | 4 | 9.0 |
—Ian Allan