Falcons pick up 5th year option for Kyle Pitts

It’s not a surprising move.

The Atlanta Falcons have made an expected move, picking up the fifth year option for gifted tight end Kyle Pitts. The move ensures Pitts will remain in Atlanta through the 2025 season, and it gives the Falcons a little more time to see how Pitts plays in a better situation and with better health before they hand him a huge contract.

The expected news came Monday from ESPN’s Field Yates.

It would be fair to say that Pitts has not had the opportunity to show us everything he can be at the NFL level. Aside from a healthy, productive first season in Atlanta with Matt Ryan under center, PItts has been dealing with injuries, poor quarterback play, or both.

In that rookie year, Pitts had 68 receptions for 1,026 yards over 17 games. In the two seasons since, he has 1,023 yards on 81 receptions in 25 games; the only real positive is that he’s increased his touchdown grab count by one in each successive season. An injury ended his 2022 season and impacted his 2023, and in both years, some of the least accurate quarterbacks in the NFL were lobbing passes his way. Pitts hasn’t been perfect or anywhere close to it, but he also really hasn’t had much of a chance to shine.

But that doesn’t mean the talent that made the Falcons comfortable taking him at No. 4 overall in the 2021 NFL Draft has evaporated, and now opportunity is banging on Pitts’ door. As a problematic matchup for many defenders who suddenly is playing with an accurate quarterback and a better cast of pass catchers around him, Pitts will get a little more breathing room and many more quality passes thrown his way. So long as he’s healthy, Pitts should have absolutely zero trouble improving his numbers from a year ago, and possibly becoming the sort of electric red zone threat the Falcons coveted when they took him in 2021.