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.
The Kyle Pitts evaluation comes in two parts for me: Marveling at what he was able to do against great college defenses, and wondering just how much more productive he'll be when he doesn't have a quarterback throwing him closed over and over.
— Doug Farrar (@NFL_DougFarrar) March 25, 2021
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.
This boundary rep against Alabama cornerback Patrick Surtain II shows a target doing everything right, and getting nothing in return from the guy throwing him the ball.
.@mattalkire — I mean… Pitts does everything right here against Surtain. Ev-e-ry-thing. You can't create an opening any better than this. But Trask is out there throwing five-pound blocks of cheese, so *sad trombone*. pic.twitter.com/aZemppvb76
— Doug Farrar (@NFL_DougFarrar) March 25, 2021
And here, on a slant to Pitts, Trask throws the quick pass a hair late, leaving Pitts in Surtain’s grasp when an anticipation throw would have likely presented a better opening for yards after the catch. Because Pitts had Surtain muttering to himself off the line with his outstanding leverage and movement.
This deep incompletion is also not ideal. We often talk about quarterbacks throwing their receivers open; Trask has the unfortunate ability to throw his receivers closed with delayed throws in which he fails to take advantage of the openings Pitts creates. As a result, Pitts finds himself with too much traffic around him than he should have. You take the inevitable, maddening hitch out of Trask’s delivery, and maybe we have something here.
When Trask does throw with anticipation, giving Pitts an opportunity to create in the timing of the route, you get special stuff like this:
Sadly, these throws didn’t happen as often as they should have. Here we have yet another hitch, yet another late throw, and yet another missed opportunity.
Now, if you give Pitts a Matt Ryan or even a Jalen Hurts, you have that next-level weapon at the next level, further accentuated by a quarterback who can take Pitts’ athletic gifts and use them to work any defense into a state of exhaustion. Any NFL quarterback with league-average abilities to throw their guys open will unlock potential from Pitts we have not yet seen.
So, yes… Kyle Pitts should be even better in the NFL than he was in college. Scary, but true.
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