Kyle Pitts Fantasy Football Outlook For 2026: Can He Build On Last Season?
Fantasy

Kyle Pitts Fantasy Football Outlook For 2026: Can He Build On Last Season?

Ian Hartitz breaks down what to expect from TE Kyle Pitts during the 2026 fantasy football season.

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After finally getting the Kyle Pitts breakout that fantasy managers have waited numerous seasons for, is he set up to repeat his 2025 success with a potentially new QB under center? Ian Hartitz breaks down what to make of the 26-year-old tight end as part of his fantasy football team preview for the Atlanta Falcons.

ATL_falcons-logo.svgCan Kyle Pitts Replicate His Success From Last Season In 2026?

Kyle Pitts' 11-166-3 eruption in the first week of the fantasy playoffs was the cherry on top of the most productive season of his career. A Jay-Z-level encore is worth betting on, considering there's plenty of precedent from the playcaller (David Njoku and Harold Fannin have four top-eight seasons since 2022) and QB (Tua got a LOT out of Jonnu Smith and Darren Waller).

That said: We are talking about a LARGE portion of Pitts' success coming with London out of the picture …

  • Pitts with London on the field: 1.29 yards per route run, 18.5% targets per route run
  • Pitts without London on the field: 2.56 yards per route run, 28.6% targets per route run

For reference, Pitts' marks without London rank first and second among 55 qualified players at the position. But with London? 35th and 33rd. Yikes!

There was also a pretty (Ned) stark difference in targets and yards per game with Kirk Cousins (6.8 targets, 57.1 yards) under center compared to Penix (5.6, 40). It'd make sense if Tua's game is closer to the former than the latter, but still, there's quite a bit of extra context that goes into Pitts' late-season surge than simply the idea that he figured things out.

It's a tough evaluation. 26 in October, Pitts is firmly in his prime and could perhaps simply be finally ascending to the sort of top-five fantasy heights that were expected of him from Day 1. Then again, the price tag (TE8) isn't exactly cheap, and past playcaller/QB success with the position isn't exactly guaranteed to translate.

Ultimately, I haven't made a habit of drafting Pitts in a range of WR4s that I LOVE, but his positional price seems fair enough, and he's accordingly the consensus TE8 amongst the Fantasy Life rankers.

Players Mentioned in this Article

  1. Kyle Pitts
    KylePitts
    TEATLATL
    PPG
    9.8
    Proj
    127.2

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