Florida tight end Kyle Pitts is rightfully thought to be a potential all-timer at his position. And there’s more to unlock in the NFL.
Were the Falcons to select Florida tight end Kyle Pitts with the fourth overall pick in the 2021 NFL draft, as I had them doing in my most recent mock, it would make Trask the highest-picked college tight end in the history of professional football. The Rams took LSU’s Billy Cannon with the first overall pick in the 1960 draft, Cannon chose to play with the Houston Oilers of the American Football League instead for more money, and the Raiders turned him into a tight end in the mid-1960s.
Were the Eagles to select Pitts with the sixth overall pick, which is where I had him in my first mock of the year, it would put him in select company. Five tight ends in pro football history have been selected with the fifth or sixth overall picks — Mike Ditka, who’s in the Hall of Fame, Kellen Winslow Sr. and Charle Young, who you could argue should be, and Riley Odoms and Vernon Davis, who each had productive careers. Pitts comes into the NFL at a time when his skills are treasured and creatively utilized more than at any other time in pro football annals, which is why you won’t see a ton of mocks in which he’s on the board past Philly at 6.
There are specific reasons for this. Today’s best tight ends are tasked to line up all over the formation, making plays in every role from leak-route weapon aligned directly to the right of the offensive tackle, to slot bully against overwhelmed linebackers, to Y-iso winner to either side of the field. The NFL’s most impossible formation to defend right now is the one in which the tight end plays Y-iso to the quarterback’s back side, and the fastest receiver plays inside slot. The Chiefs frequently demolish opposing defenses with this concept and the Travis Kelce/Tyreek Hill combination, the Raiders did it nicely last season with Darren Waller and Nelson Agholor, and you can bet you’ll see it from the Patriots in 2021 with new additions Hunter Henry and Mr. Agholor.
TE Hunter Henry and WR Nelson Agholor give Patriots indefensible potential
And yet, when you watch Pitts’ college tape, as impressive as it is, you’re left wondering just how much more of a terrifying weapon he could be at the next level. That’s a heck of a thing to say about a tight end who caught 43 passes for 770 yards and 12 touchdowns in 2020 alone, but as they say, tape don’t lie. My colleague Mark Schofield wrote an entire article about Pitts’ three-score game against Kentucky and how that proved Pitts’ status as a matchup nightmare. For the purposes of this piece, I turned my attention to Pitts’ performance against Alabama in the SEC Championship game, when he caught seven passes for 129 yards and a touchdown against a defense packed with future first-round talent.
It didn’t take long to see the problem. The problem? Florida quarterback Kyle Trask.
That observation brought about a discussion about Pitts with a Twitter buddy, and I started bring up tape examples of Pitts doing things at an NFL All-Pro level, and getting nothing for it.
