FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. — The Atlanta Falcons’ new coaching staff sees the same things in Kyle Pitts the former coaching staff saw when it drafted him with the No. 4 pick in 2021. Everyone sees it, in fact. The 6-foot-6, 245-pound Pitts, who ran a 4.44 40-yard dash, remains an athletic marvel.
“You guys see the athletic traits and what he can do when the ball is in the air, what he can do with the ball in his hands,” first-year offensive coordinator Zac Robinson said about his new starting tight end. “He’s got so much flexibility with what he can do.”
Now it’s up to that new coaching staff to see if it can get all those things out of Pitts. Under former head coach Arthur Smith, Pitts became the second rookie tight end in NFL history with more than 1,000 receiving yards, catching 68 passes from Matt Ryan for 1,026 yards in 2021.
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Then the Falcons changed quarterbacks. Then Pitts tore his MCL and PCL. Then Smith was fired.
Now what? Now, Pitts has “a personal vendetta to get back,” first-year Falcons head coach Raheem Morris said, and it’s Morris’ job to make that happen.
“If we can get this guy going, we all know what he could be,” Morris said. “That’s the job of a coach. Hopefully, myself and all our coaches can go get the best version of Kyle Pitts because that will be really good for all of us.”
Oooo, @kylepitts__ 👀 pic.twitter.com/t7m0TapA20
— Atlanta Falcons (@AtlantaFalcons) May 20, 2024
As Pitts enters his fourth season in the NFL, that best version still is frustratingly unrealized. Even in his 1,000-yard debut, Pitts had only one touchdown. He has six in his three-year career. By comparison, Lions rookie tight end Sam LaPorta had 10 touchdowns last season.
Morris and Robinson (and pretty much everyone else) believe Pitts has more to give the Falcons, and Atlanta quickly made a bet on that by picking up the tight end’s fifth-year contract option this offseason. It’s not a big bet. Pitts’ salary in 2025 will be $10.8 million. Still, the significance was important to Pitts.
“It’s a blessing for the upstairs people to still have faith in me,” he said. “I’m going to try to show them I can do something different this year.”
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Returning to full health should help. Pitts tore his MCL and PCL in the 10th game of the 2022 season, missed the remainder of that campaign and was slowed by the injury throughout the 2023 season, he said.
“I wouldn’t say it was so much bad during the games. It was more the preparation during the week and dealing with the soreness and tightness,” he said. “Then Sunday, you figured it out, but all during the week it was a grind.”
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Pitts finished last season with 53 catches for 667 yards (11th among tight ends) and three touchdowns. During Atlanta OTAs in mid-May, he said he finally feels “1,000 percent” physically and called it “amazing.”
That’s the Falcons’ hope.
“Having a healthy Kyle Pitts back gives you a really dynamic player that we believe in a lot, hence picking up his option to let him be a part of our immediate and hopefully long-term future,” Morris said.
The second piece of Pitts’ potential improvement hinges on veteran quarterback addition Kirk Cousins. The tight end’s best season came with Ryan at quarterback. Like Ryan, Cousins isn’t shy about telling Pitts exactly what he wants on the field.
“He’s very intentional and that’s what you get with the veteran,” Pitts said. “They tell you where to be in different coverages and going against different players. He tells you how to win.”
Pitts has missed that the last two seasons. Marcus Mariota was integrating himself into a new team in 2022, and Desmond Ridder was still learning the game himself in 2023, leaving Pitts without enough direction from the quarterback position.
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Learning a new offense along with a veteran quarterback should benefit Pitts, the 23-year-old tight end said.
“I would say I’m a super rookie,” he said. “I wouldn’t say I’m a rookie-rookie but we’re all in this new, we’re all in this fresh.”
The new Falcons coaching staff plans to use Pitts as much or more than the previous staff did, which, despite public perception, was a healthy amount. In Pitts’ three-year career, he accounted for 19.2 percent of Atlanta’s receiving yards and 17.7 percent of its passing targets. Those numbers ranked sixth and eighth, respectively, among tight ends with more than 50 catches during that period, according to TruMedia. Pitts’ EPA per target (expected points added) ranked 21st among tight ends and 100th among all pass catchers in the last three seasons, according to TruMedia.
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“Your mind can go in a lot of different directions with a guy like that in a good way. We’ll use him all over the formation,” Robinson said. “We’ll use him as a blocker. We’ll use him as a receiver. I’m excited about him as a blocker. I think that’s untapped. He’s willing and he wants to do it. He wants to be a complete tight end.”
Pitts has 149 catches for 2,049 yards in his career.
“I see a young guy who is eager to learn and want more,” Morris said. “You’ve got to have a little edge, and he’s starting to show that more every day. The better we can get him, our team will be better, our city will be better.”
The Falcons have trained Pitts at tight end and wide receiver this offseason and plan to use him both ways this season.
“He’s handled it really well,” Robinson said. “Just excited to see him get more comfortable in the system. The sky’s the limit.”
(Photo: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)
