Kyle Pitts is entering his sixth NFL season and is once again a popular name in fantasy circles. He finished last season inside the top five at his position, but there is more going on beneath that number than most people realize. Should fantasy managers be drafting Pitts in 2026?
Should I Draft Kyle Pitts Sr. in Fantasy Football?
I do not want to say Pitts is unfairly priced this season, because the pedigree genuinely justifies some measure of hope.
He is inarguably one of the greatest tight end prospects of all time. Pitts went No. 4 overall in the 2021 draft, arrived with elite athletic measurables, and posted 1,026 receiving yards as a rookie. At the time, nobody at the position had ever done that.
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That was also five years ago. We have now seen four subsequent seasons from Pitts, and not one of them resembles what he showed in Year 1.
The most recent one is where it gets interesting, because on the surface it looks like a breakthrough. Pitts finished as the TE4 last season, averaging 12.4 fantasy points per game. Anyone glancing at the final standings would conclude he had finally arrived.
Then you look at how he got there. Pitts posted 45.6 fantasy points in Week 15 alone. Across his other 16 games, he averaged 10.3 PPG. That is replacement-level production, the sort of output available on waiver wires in most leagues at any point in the season.
Sit with what that means. Outside of literally one afternoon, Pitts has been replacement-level at best for his entire career. Not last season. His entire career. And now we are suddenly drafting him as a top-eight tight end.
There is one scenario that makes him relevant, and it is worth acknowledging honestly. Heavily bolstered by that same Week 15 explosion, Pitts averaged 19.0 PPG in games without Drake London against just 9.6 PPG with him on the field. The split is real even if the sample is skewed by a single outlier.
London is healthy now. If he were to get hurt at some point, Pitts naturally becomes a more interesting proposition.
But I am not spending a draft pick hoping a team’s best receiver goes down. That is not a strategy. It is a wish attached to a player who has spent five years failing to produce whenever the depth chart was fully intact.
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Pitts is my TE9 at a TE8 ADP, which understates the gap between us in practice. Tight end is deep enough this year that there is no reason to reach for a profile like this one when comparable production sits several rounds later.
Pitts is an incredibly easy fade for me this season. I simply do not understand the appeal.
Katz’s TE Fantasy Rankings 2026
- Brock Bowers | LV
- Trey McBride | ARI
- Colston Loveland | CHI
- Tyler Warren | IND
- Sam LaPorta | DET
- Tucker Kraft | GB
- Harold Fannin Jr. | CLE
- George Kittle | SF
- Kyle Pitts Sr. | ATL
- Dalton Kincaid | BUF
- Travis Kelce | KC
- Dallas Goedert | PHI
- Brenton Strange | JAX
- Isaiah Likely | NYG
- Mark Andrews | BAL
- Jake Ferguson | DAL
- Chig Okonkwo | WAS
- Juwan Johnson | NO
- Hunter Henry | NE
- T.J. Hockenson | MIN
- AJ Barner | SEA
- Greg Dulcich | MIA
- Kenyon Sadiq | NYJ
- Oronde Gadsden II | LAC
- Gunnar Helm | TEN
- Dalton Schultz | HOU
- Pat Freiermuth | PIT
- Colby Parkinson | LAR
- Terrance Ferguson | LAR
- Cade Otton | TB
