FFW Micro - Kyle Pitts

particular player. Could be anybody. You never know what you're gonna get, but you're gonna get one player from you know, five to ten minutes, and the idea is to tell you some things about that player that maybe you didn't know or didn't remember from last year. My co host for Fantasy Football Weekly Micro is Guillotine Leagues writer Tyler Kennabilely. Hi, Tyler, Hi, thanks for having me. Yeah, good to have you here. I'm excited. This is your Fantasy Football Weekly premiere edition.

What do you think? I'm excited, honestly, just to talk about some of these players. I mean, the amount of hours I consume of fantasy football, whether it be a YouTube via just my own interests, searching the Internet for some stat that no one cares about is it's something for sure. So I'm excited to actually talk to not just myself and my own thoughts about some of like the opinions I have on these players. That's great, and

you've done great work on this. Our first the first guy we're going to talk about is Kyle Pitts, and I want to encourage listeners, your feedback counts on this. This is an experiment. We may or may not continue doing this. We don't know yet. Do you love it? What do you want out of it? At Paul Charchion on Twitter at Tyler Knabily k n A e b l E k n a e b l E Tyler

Knnabilely on Twitter. Okay, let's talk Kyle Pitts, one of the most polarizing players in fantasy football, and within our own show, Brian, we're doing Kyle Pitts without Brian here, which feels weird. I think you're gonna be playing the role of Kyle Pitts apologist that is normally a Brian role, and I will continue to be the Kyle Pitts not a hater. So I'm not a hater and I want him to be great, but I've been skeptical all along,

based mostly on his draft position. But let's let's start with Kyle Pitts, what do you how do you want to open the conversation. Well, first off, I just want to say I think me and Brian might have to go get drinks and just talk about Kyle Pitts for maybe like an hour. I'm worried about where that would end up. Yeah, But first off, I mean he's going right now adp tight end five, which is like fifth,

six fifth or sixth round in best Ball. Last year he was the tight end twenty in average points per game, and a note I found was Jordan Aikens tighten nineteen Secually he was worse than Jordan and its points per game two, which is kind of hard to believe that he finished worse than points per game than Jordan Nakens. I don't remember ever going against Jordan Nakens last year in fantasy football in any of my league, nobody ever

started Jordan Kins. No, yeah, but you started Kyle Pitts a lot, and if you're in a Guillotine league, not for very long. Yes. Yeah, your season ended early on Kyle Pitts potentially, so we know that to this point he hasn't helped us very much. But we're forward facing here. What are you thinking about if you look ahead to this coming year, what can we learn. Well, the biggest thing with Coppits, I think that everybody knows he's just a talent that he can possess. I mean, he's a

generational tight end talent. He had the second most receiving yards ever for a rookie tight end, behind only my Dicka. You're in a four four fourty day, which take that with a grain of salt. I guess at two hundred forty five pounds, but that's a ninety nine percentile speed score. That's insane for a tight end like he can run faster than some receivers, and the two hundred forty five pounds. You would like to think, like this year, that the

past attempts will be up. If you're apologists like myself, you'd like to think that the past attempts will be up with a non Mariota quarterback. Atlanta was second in rushing attempts last year, and that's a big concern exactly, and then the second fewest past attempts at twenty four point two. So that that's the problem right now that Lagiah Coppits is what kind of offense is he going to be in? This year and will it change now.

One of the things that may suggest it will change is when Desmond Ritter started the last four games, those attempts jumped up from twenty four point two to thirty passing attempts per game. And Ritter had two games with thirty or more passing attempts and four starts and mariotely had two of those games in thirteen starts. Yeah, so maybe Ritter's gonna maybe they're gonna unlock more passing with Ritter because because last year suggested that that would be

the case. But it's still Arthur Smith. He's got the Titans, Mike Vrabel, you know, mindset running through his veins, and Tyler. I worry that he's just playing, gonna run the ball a lot no matter what, and that's just who he is. And maybe maybe that'll change some with the change at quarterback. Maybe Desmond Ritter will alter that. But it's not like Desmond Ritter looks like a phenomenal passer that you need to build an offense around. But I think he can

be a better passer than Mariota. I'm a diehard Falcons fan. I followed this team all last year and it's think it's worth mentioning that when Matt Ryan was the quarterback the first year Arthur Smith was there, Yeah, there were nineteenth and passing attempts per game, which I mean, it's not like it's the top ten, but it's a lot

better than thirty first. Yes, So that's one of the things that I was kind of gives me hope that I think Arthur Smith is truly believes that whatever is, whatever offense, whatever like personnel he has on the field, he's gonna get the best out of him. Whether that's passing the ball fifty times a game or running the ball fifty times a game, He's going to do that. Now, I think I will admit that he does like to run the ball. He likes the presence of a running game.

He's not Mike Leach offense where they're gonna throw it eight times a game. So I'm not saying he's like that, but I do think he wants to establish the run for sure, and he definitely has an old line that that is going to do that. The old line was second and run. It's actually pretty good offensive line. Old line was second in PF run blocking, their eighth and pass blocking, so they have a good old line which

is hopefully give riders from time. It's just whether or not that he that he just unlocks Kyle pits, which we haven't seen fully yet. I mean, I think he only has three touchdowns in his career in two seasons we've seen him. I think people forget that he caught a thousand yards in his first season because not listeners to this show won't. We will not have forgotten that because Brian Johnson will not let you forget Tyler. Now, Brian, if he were here, he would also be saying he's

not a tight end. He's a wide receiver masquerading as a tight end. And I know you've got some data about where Kyle Pitts has lined up. Yeah, so over the past two seasons he is kind of pretty much like he has almost a third in all three positions. So in line he's played thirty four percent of his snaps, the slot has been thirty five percent, and then out wide he's lined up there twenty nine percent of the time. So that's a pretty good sample side of kind. He

can play literally anywhere. And I think a big piece of that is going to be that John U Smith signing that they had, which is kind of underrated because I think what they might end up doing is john U Smith is going to play in line tight end. He's gonna be the one blocking. He's gonna be the one doing the stuff that nobody wants Kyle Pitts doing in the fantasy football community. Yes, Kyle Pitts, I think is just going to be the wide super one. He's gonna be in this lot. He's going to be out wide.

He can just kind of line up anywhere that could be. And you know, you don't have to sell Johnny Smith on me in his ability to help the overall offense. I am. I am to Johnny Smith with Brian Johnson is and maybe you are to Kyle Pitts. I believe that one of the things that caught my eye about Kyle Pitts that worries me. He had the worst catch percentage in the entire league last year. He only caught half of his targets. He was like forty nine point

eight percent worst in the league. Now you're gonna be tempted to say, well, you look at his quarterbacking. He had Marcus Mariota, and he had Desmond Ritters, and okay, I get that. But according to next Gen Stats, Mariota's completion percentage above expectation was only negative one percent. Negative one percent isn't great, but that was also Tom Brady was negative one percent. Aaron Rodgers was negative one percent

over expectation. So Mario, it's not like Mariota and Ritter were just sending ground balls his way all the time. You know, I need Kyle Pitts to not be the lowest catch percentage player in the league. One thing that because I was doing some digging on that too, because I saw you put that in there, and I was just curious my advanced my Crack research staff, and yes, yep, we found that Mariota had the third highest poor pass percentage in the league. The only two players that he

trailed were Zach Wilson and Davis Mills. There was the only two players that were above him, and he also had the second lowest on target percentage, trailing only Zach Wilson. Wow, So I don't know. I just feel like he was catching uncatchable He was trying to catch uncatchable balls from Marioda specifically, and we didn't see him with Ridter obviously,

so we don't know what that's gonna be. Like, talk to me about where Kyle Pitts is going in early drafts so far, and if ultimately you think that he is going in the appropriate place or if he should be going higher or lower. So right now he's going at tighten five again, fifth sixth round, which the little bit a little bit of a dip last season, which actually, like, considering the season he had last year, I'm surprised it's not a little bit far down me too. That's just

how much people believe in Kyle Pitts. I guess the only tight ends well, and also how a few other tight ends there are, yeah, that you can count on right now. Yeah, I honestly I like this. I like it a lot. You're get him out at a better price than what you thought he was gonna be last season. I just kind of see, you're kind of just buying a dip a little bit with Kyle Pitts. I think that the offense is going to turn around. I mean,

he is just too good. I don't think we've seen somebody who you know, the talents there and it just it just it just has to click at some point. If it doesn't click this year, I don't know if it's ever going to click. I think we said that last year a lot too, but I'm still holding out thirty year now. For receivers, it used to be years ago the third years when wide receivers would tend to blossom.

That turned into year two, and now it's really turning almost into year one, like Decembers, when you're good receivers start to blossom. For tight ends, it's been it's been year three for a long time, and Kyle Pitts might walk into a great third season. I'm not taking him a tight end five. Where would you take him? I think he I believe I will. I haven't done my final rankings, well not final, I haven't done my early rankings yet. I think Kyle Pitts will be roughly tight

end ten for me. So I'm not gonna I'm not gonna be close here. I'm gonna have Dalton Sheltz Hires to go to receiver. I don't even Knowho's throwing him the ball yet. Um, I'm gonna have Dalton schltz Hire. I'm gonna have a bunch of I'm gonna have a bunch of guys that I trust more than Kyle Pitts in this offense. Thank Kyle Pits. Well, I guess we're just going to agree to disagree that, aren't we. You can have him, will you can have with Kyle Schilton.

I'm going to have fun with Dalton Sheltz. He's the only receiver they've got on that team right now. You can catch a pass, all right? Thank you. First edition of Fantasy Football Weekly micro in the books. If you found this uh helpful or not, let me know at Paul Charchian, at Tyler Kennabali A n A E B L E on Twitter. We'll talk to you tomorrow. Everybody, Bye bye,