NFL fantasy diamonds: Why Calvin Ridley, Anthony Richardson need a double take in 2023

NFL fantasy diamond tight-ends: Kyle Pitts

Average draft position: TE5, 78th overall

My rankings: TE3, 39th overall

Falcons tight-end Kyle Pitts

This is much less about just seeing a name way too low among its position group, rather than just believing in a player that most people are afraid of or just don’t want to invest in again. Fantasy managers got burnt by him last season, so the trust has been broken.

Kyle Pitts was the TE3 or 4, who you needed to target early, somewhere in the fourth round of your drafts a year ago. He repaid those people with just 28 catches for 356 yards and two touchdowns, before getting hurt 10 games into the season. And the majority of that production came in two games, with three or fewer catches and less than 30 yards in all but three of the ten contests.

So why the hell am I telling you to draft him this year? Well, just on the surface – this is just a 22-year-old unicorn at the position, who is 6’6”, just under 250 pounds, runs in the mid-4.4s, and has an 83.5-inch wingspan. And to me what’s most exciting is actually how well he can reduce that size and be crisp out of his breaks.

However, this is not just some uber-athletic project. He dominated the SEC in his final season with Florida and then became just the second tight end in NFL history to go over 1,000 receiving yards as a rookie. Pitts just only reached the end-zone once, to put him at TE7. Had he just gotten an average amount such as five, he would’ve already jumped up to number three at the position, behind only Mark Andrews and Travis Kelce that year.

I don’t believe that should be a major concern, because obviously if you have the length to reach over any defender, his body control and his hands, he has the tools to be a monster in the red zone. However, let’s for now look more at what he did as part of the every-down offense last season.,

To summarize my thoughts on why Pitts did as poorly last season, Atlanta was the only team to run it more than they threw it (at 51%). They were still developing their dropback pass game, while off play-action Pitts too often was sort of wasted as the threat in the flats. Most importantly, Marcus Mariota could not take advantage of this guy’s talent, in particular down the field, where he didn’t read leverage correctly and the ball placement was generally off.

I still believe they’ll run the offense a lot through the ground game, especially now with a special talent in eighth overall pick Bijan Robinson toting the rock, and Desmond Ridder is fairly unproven at this point.

However, I saw Arthur Smith open things up and create favorable passing looks for his young QB on early downs over the latter two of four starts. Ridder himself showed promising signs from within the structure and the way he would keep his eyes UP on the move, rather than Mariota quickly turning into a runner.

The opportunities are certainly a little more limited than they would be on a team with an elite QB, where they throw the ball on 60+ % of plays, but the narrative about the HC in Atlanta not wanting to use his dynamic weapon is just flat-out wrong.

Pitts was targeted on 28.5% of the routes he ran, and that number actually slightly went up when another top-10 draft pick at pass-catcher in Drake London was on the field at the same time. Yet, with his average depth of target going up by a full three yards to 13.8 per, the rate of uncatchable targets thrown his way went all the way up to 29%, the highest mark in the league among guys who ran 200+ routes.

Even with all of that in mind, there were some flashes of the tremendous talent that this guy is, where he’s elevating for back-shoulder fades that look indefensible if placed correctly, catching a slant over the middle with the safety looking to decapitate him, but the defender is actually the one staying down, or crossing up guys in the open field with the ball in his hands.

Really what it comes down to is you are drafting either a WR1 or 1A for an offense that may be more run-centric, but wants to hit big plays through the air, and has insane alignment versatility, to where it’s hard to bracket or just communicate accordingly how they will defend such a unique weapon.

If Arthur Smith is conscious about creating more favorable looks for his young signal-caller on first down and takes full advantage of the formational flexibility they present, I could absolutely see Pitts finishing behind only Travis Kelce among TEs. His opportunity is actually better than last year, but you can grab him a good three rounds later.

NFL fantasy diamond tight-ends: Greg Dulcich

Average draft position: TE12, 133rd overall

My rankings: TE10, 80th overall

Broncos tight-end Greg Dulcich

For anybody completely unfamiliar with the man spotting the most glorious mustache in the NFL, Dulcich was an early third-round pick for Denver last year, who started the year on IR. Across ten games played, he hauled in 33 of 55 targets for 411 yards and two touchdowns, for a top-ten mark at the position in yards per grab at 12.5 yards.

Being part of an offense that scored a league-low in points, he didn’t get much of a chance to stand out to people on a national scale, but anybody who’s watched this young man play understands that he offers a dynamic skill set for a tight-end.

Now with Sean Payton coming in and a full offseason to immerse himself into the offense, I believe we could easily see him double his rookie numbers and be much more impactful.

To put what the rookie did into context, the only other tight-ends, who were targeted at least double-digit times, with a higher average depth of target were Darren Waller and Kyle Pitts, despite how boxed-in this offense felt otherwise. And what makes this so impressive is this nugget, the only two TEs with double-digit yards of ADOT and at least three yards of separation on average were Mark Andrews and Dulcich.

His ability to stress defenses down the seams could change how coverages are structured against them, yet he also features a quick turn to take advantage of hook defenders dropping too deep. His speed can be used on a horizontal plane and he’s capable of shaking guys at the top of deeper routes, to where they sent him on a couple of corner-post routes last season, with the safety in two-high looks getting turned the wrong way by him.

The most important piece in producing fantasy value is being on the field, when available, their former coaching staff trusted him with playing 75% of offensive snaps at a position that is generally considered to be very difficult to adapt to coming out of college.

Dulcich has never been a great blocker, but he does bring good effort and his guy rarely makes the tackle. And while I don’t want to throw out lofty goals or a name that once was considered one of the premier offensive weapons in football, just understanding how Sean Payton utilized him and the fact that he surprisingly came out of retirement recently, there’s reason to believe Dulcich could be used in similar ways as Jimmy Graham.

He’s obviously not as big or imposing in contested situations, but he doesn’t mind high-pointing balls over the middle of the field and has the legitimate speed to create separation vertically when isolated.

Even last season when the passing attack faced several hiccups, they found ways to feature this guy and went to him quite a bit on third downs. Dulcich currently going at the fringe of being a TE1 in 12-team leagues, which I believe he absolutely is and he has the skill set to be among the upper half of that group (because Payton has highlighted a big slot receiver for the majority of his time in New Orleans).

So even if you think of Dulcich as more of a Marques Colston-esque player – even though the de-facto TE is actually faster – that’s a guy who went over 900 receiving yards and 5+ TDs in every year he played at least 12 games.

Honorable mentions: Sam LaPorta (TE23), Hayden Hurst (TE26) & Cade Otton (TE32)