Kyle Pitts — Week 3: Two Targets, Both in the First Quarter
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Saturday, Sep 26
Pitts was thrown to twice, both in the first quarter — an incompletion on first and ten with 11:07 left and a 5-yard catch with 5:07 left — and not again over the final three quarters. Drake London drew ten targets, and Austin Hooper caught the Falcons' only touchdown pass, in a 35–14 win over the Packers.
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Nothing to nothing, 11 oh seven left in the first quarter, first and 10 at the Atlanta 27. Michael Penix threw short middle for Kyle Pitts, incomplete. −0.6 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position. Six minutes of game clock later, first and 10 at the Atlanta 15 with five oh seven left and the Falcons down seven, Penix threw short right to Pitts for five yards to the 20. That was his second target and his last. Atlanta ran 54 more passes and runs after that, kneel-downs and the two-point try aside, and none of them was a throw to Pitts.
The line: two targets, one catch, five yards, no first downs, −0.5 expected points on the targets. Both came before the Falcons' first points. Three quarters without a target, on a night Atlanta threw for 256 yards.
Where the ball went: Drake London had 10 targets and a hundred 94 yards. Jahan Dotson had three. Pitts, Bijan Robinson, Zachariah Branch, Olamide Zaccheaus and Austin Hooper had two each, and Hooper's second was the five-yard touchdown on third and five with a minute oh two left in the half. Two tight ends, four targets, and the one that scored went to the other one. After halftime Atlanta threw on five pass plays and ran 19 times, so there was very little passing game left for anyone but London, who had four of the five.
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, about seven a game. Week 1 was one target and no catches. Week 2 was three and one. Both episodes said the contradiction could not be separated from Cooper Rush being the passer. Thursday was the first game with Michael Penix, and Pitts drew two targets in the first quarter and none after. Six targets in three games, two catches, 20 yards. The quarterback caveat is gone now, and the number did not move with it, though one game with the new passer is a first entry rather than a verdict. Atlanta is at the Saints on Monday the fifth.
_Data via nflverse._
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