A comment I've seen a few times in fantasy circles is people wondering if this will be the year that Kyle Pitts breaks out. It's not entirely fair, with him having gone over 1,000 receiving yards as a rookie, but then last year was a huge disappointment.
Even as a rookie, Pitts caught only 1 touchdown. Then in year two he averaged under 3 catches for just 36 yards in his 10 healthy games, with 2 touchdowns. Why again did the Falcons make him the earliest drafted tight end ever?
But Pitts can't throw the ball to himself. The structure of the offense is a big part of why he didn't do much a year ago, and why I'm not confident either he, or Drake London, will put up big numbers this season.
In 2021, when Pitts caught 68 passes for 1,026 yards, the Falcons ranked 16th in passing offense, at 235 yards per game. They were only slightly below average in pass attempts. Then there was 2022. Last year, Atlanta ranked next-to-last in passing offense, at just 172 yards per game, and averaged just 24 attempts. That was better than only Chicago in both areas (and the Bears didn't have any notable pass catchers either).
| TEAM PASSING, 2022 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Team | Yards/G | Att/G |
| Tampa Bay | 279.2 | 44.2 |
| LA Chargers | 281.8 | 41.8 |
| Minnesota | 283.4 | 39.5 |
| Arizona | 233.3 | 39.1 |
| Kansas City | 308.8 | 38.3 |
| Cincinnati | 282.4 | 38.1 |
| NY Jets | 237.5 | 36.9 |
| Buffalo | 268.2 | 35.9 |
| Indianapolis | 226.7 | 35.5 |
| Jacksonville | 243.9 | 35.1 |
| Detroit | 261.4 | 34.6 |
| Las Vegas | 246.0 | 34.5 |
| Miami | 280.3 | 34.4 |
| Houston | 214.2 | 34.1 |
| Seattle | 251.9 | 33.7 |
| Denver | 235.7 | 33.6 |
| Pittsburgh | 215.4 | 33.6 |
| Green Bay | 228.8 | 33.1 |
| Dallas | 230.1 | 32.7 |
| Washington | 222.5 | 32.6 |
| Cleveland | 218.2 | 31.8 |
| New England | 224.4 | 31.8 |
| Philadelphia | 256.7 | 31.5 |
| LA Rams | 206.2 | 31.2 |
| NY Giants | 204.2 | 30.6 |
| New Orleans | 233.4 | 30.1 |
| San Francisco | 238.2 | 30.1 |
| Baltimore | 188.4 | 28.7 |
| Carolina | 190.9 | 26.9 |
| Tennessee | 189.8 | 26.8 |
| Atlanta | 172.2 | 24.4 |
| Chicago | 152.8 | 22.2 |
Last year, Atlanta soured on Marcus Mariota, and basically abandoned the passing game for most of the season. But it remains to be seen if they'll have any more inclination to pass the ball much with Desmond Ridder at quarterback, and they used their top draft pick on Bijan Robinson; this is going to be a running team again.
Pitts himself is coming off an MCL injury, but there's no reason to think he won't be fully healthy for training camp. He's going to be one of the top receiving options. But I'm not convinced the team will make many changes to their run-dominated approach. Talented as he is, tough to see Pitts being dramatically better this season than last.
--Andy Richardson