ESPN Predicts That We Trade For Kyle Pitts!

[*ochocincos*]

I haven't watched enough of the Falcons over the past few years to notice if the decline in Pitts's targets was due to the team realizing he wasn't good enough to be the 2nd option in the offense or if the team just wanted to prioritize the WRs over him and have essentially made him the 3rd option.

Regardless, Pitts has maintained a healthy 13.5 YPR average across his 4 seasons.
His catch % is 58.9%, which is lower than Gesicki (65.3%), but Pitts I know is going out for deeper routes, so the reduced catch % may be more because of how he's used.

If we play some TheoryCraft, let's assume Pitts would have the same targets as Gesicki last year, more if Higgins departs and they treat Pitts as 2nd option.
If like Gesicki, Pitts would have around 50 or so receptions with his career catch %.
If more because Higgins was gone, probably closer to 60 receptions.

If Pitts had around 60 receptions at his career YPR, he'd be right about 800 yards receiving.
If closer to the targets Gesicki got last year, Pitts would be around 675 yards receiving, which would be right about what Gesicki had (665) but on fewer receptions.

If Pitts had about 800 yards, he would have been 5th among TEs this past season.

I think Pitts could be a solid 2nd option and a good 3rd option, however...
He's not going to be as good as Higgins, but you'd be saving ~$15-20 mill by going this budget route, which could go toward another position.
His $10 mill cap hit would very likely be greater than the APY cost of retaining Gesicki for a year or two, so if the usage is gonna be like Gesicki, you may wanna just retain Gesicki for (somewhat) cheaper.

In my eyes though, I'd love a scenario where Bengals actually had both Chase and Pitts and used them like Chiefs did Hill and Kelce a few years back when both were putting up 1200+ yards. I am not sure the Bengals would emphasize a TE that much, but they might since we did see the TE used more after Boyd departed. If Higgins also departed, TE may jump to 2nd option if the player is good enough to produce.