Kyle Pitts — Week 1: One Target, Deep Right, Incomplete
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Monday, Sep 14
Pitts was thrown to once Sunday — second and nineteen at the Atlanta forty with five oh one left in the first quarter, Cooper Rush deep right, twenty-six yards in the air, incomplete with Jalen Ramsey on the play. A second throw his way in the last minute of the half was erased by a holding penalty. One target on twenty-six Falcons pass plays, no catches, in a 20–13 loss to the Steelers.
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The full episode, in writing
Kyle Pitts's season opened with one throw, and it was a long one. Second and 19 at the Atlanta 40, five oh one left in the first quarter, Falcons down nothing to three: Cooper Rush deep right for Pitts, 26 yards in the air, incomplete, Jalen Ramsey credited on the play. That was worth −0.9 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position — and the next snap, third and 19, was another deep incompletion, to Jahan Dotson, and Atlanta punted. There was one more ball thrown in his direction, short middle with a minute left in the half, incomplete, and it did not count: holding on Jake Matthews, no play.
That is the whole line. One target, no catches, no yards, no touchdowns. Cooper Rush was the passer on all 26 of Atlanta's pass plays — starting because Tua Tagovailoa and Michael Penix were both inactive, per Grant Gordon at NFL.com — and he threw to a tight end once. Rush threw five passes that traveled 17 or more yards in the air Sunday: Drake London caught one for 21 and Dotson caught one for 19, one was intercepted, and two, including the throw to Pitts, fell incomplete.
Where the ball went instead is the football. 10 targets to Bijan Robinson, who caught eight for 90 yards and the touchdown; four to London; three to Dotson; one to Pitts, one to Olamide Zaccheaus. 22 throws, 12 completions, a hundred 43 yards, four sacks, two interceptions, and a two-of-12 day on third down. Atlanta ran 31 times and threw on 26 pass plays, with 20 of the runs after halftime, so the second-half passing game that a tight end might have grown into was 10 plays long.
Back in June the preview called Pitts a second-team All-Pro priced as the seventh tight end — second among tight ends last season on a hundred 18 targets across 17 games, production that came steadily rather than in touchdown bursts. A hundred 18 targets is about seven a game, and Sunday was one, from a quarterback who was not the one the preview had in mind. It is the loudest contradiction in this batch and the least settled one, because the throw count belongs to Cooper Rush and one start does not tell you what the volume looks like under anyone else. Atlanta is home to the Panthers on Sunday the twentieth, and the number is the target count, whoever is throwing.
_Data via nflverse._
When Kyle Pitts's week moves the numbers, you'll know — every episode, in one weekly email.
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