Kyle Pitts Finally Looked Like Kyle Pitts
Thursday night in Tampa, Kyle Pitts did something no tight end had accomplished in 28 years: 11 catches, 166 yards, three touchdowns. The last player to hit those numbers at the position was Shannon Sharpe in 1996, back when the internet ran on dial-up, and the tight end was still primarily a blocking specialist pretending to catch passes.
The statistical milestone matters, but the context matters more. This was Pitts' first 100-yard receiving game since his rookie season in 2021. Three years of injuries, scheme changes, quarterback carousels, and mounting questions about whether the fourth overall pick—the highest-drafted tight end in NFL history—was living up to the "generational talent" label that followed him out of Florida.
The thing about being called a unicorn is that everyone's waiting to see if you're actually mythical or just wearing a party hat. Pitts came into the league with 1,026 yards as a rookie, joining Mike Ditka as the only first-year tight ends to crack 1,000. Then came the MCL tear. The coaching changes. The 356-yard sophomore season. The whispers that maybe he was just a receiver playing out of position, that modern offenses had moved past needing this kind of athletic specimen at a position nobody knew how to properly utilize anymore.
But here's what Thursday night represented beyond the numbers: validation for everyone who insisted the talent was still there, just trapped in offensive schemes that didn't know what to do with a 6-foot-6 pass-catcher who runs like a wide receiver. The Falcons didn't suddenly figure out some revolutionary way to use Pitts. They just gave Kirk Cousins the freedom to target him 11 times and watched what happened when you let elite athleticism loose in space.
Atlanta won 29-28, a comeback that wouldn't have happened without Pitts falling backwards into the end zone on a contested catch that took replay review to confirm. That's the kind of moment that either defines a career trajectory or becomes a footnote in a disappointing what-if story. For Pitts, it feels more like the former—a reminder that the ceiling everyone saw in 2021 isn't a fantasy, just something that's been covered up by circumstances beyond his control.
