Latest news with #KylePitts
Yahoo
19 hours ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
LOOK: Falcons players arrive for start of NFL training camp
The long NFL offseason is officially over now that the Atlanta Falcons have kicked off training camp for the 2025 season. Players began arriving at the team's Flowery Branch training facility on Wednesday morning and will hold their first practice on Thursday. Some big names, including quarterback Michael Penix Jr., running back Bijan Robinson and tight end Kyle Pitts, are already in the building. The Falcons have plenty of work to do if they're going to finally end their seven-year postseason drought, and it all begins at training camp. Watch below as Penix, Robinson, and others arrive for the start of camp. QB Michael Penix Jr. RB Bijan Robinson TE Kyle Pitts S DeMarcco Hellams WR Drake London This article originally appeared on Falcons Wire: Atlanta Falcons: Michael Penix, Bijan Robinson arrive at training camp
Yahoo
17-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Chargers predicted to acquire former No. 4 overall draft pick teetering on bust status
The Los Angeles Chargers made several improvements to their roster this offseason with the mindset of adding more weapons for Justin Herbert. But they weren't able to do much at the tight end position. Colston Loveland was believed to be the team's top first-round draft target as he played at Michigan under Jim Harbaugh, but he went to the Chicago Bears with the No. 10 overall pick, much higher than anyone expected him to go. The team then had to pivot and ended up settling on Oronde Gadsden II in the fifth round. Gadsden has already turned heads since being drafted by the team and could turn into a huge value this season. But with only the rookie to go along with Will Dissly and Tyler Conklin, more help could be found. The Atlanta Falcons have never gotten what they hoped for out of Kyle Pitts, the No. 4 overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, and could choose to part ways with him before the season starts. According to D. Orlando Ledbetter of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the team has no current plans to extend Pitts, leading to ideas that he could be traded. David Latham of Last Word on Sports took to that idea and came up with some potential landing spots for Pitts, listing the Chargers among that group. "The Los Angeles Chargers have arguably the league's weakest group of tight ends. Will Dissly and Tyler Conklin are both unremarkable veterans, and Justin Herbert could use someone with more upside in this passing attack. Kyle Pitts may not be the safest bet, but the Falcons tight end offers plenty of promise. Head coach Jim Harbaugh excels at getting the most out of his players, so perhaps a change of scenery could have Pitts looking like his dominant Florida self", wrote Latham. It would depend on what the Falcons would ask for in return for Pitts, but this is a move that could make sense for the Chargers, a team that, despite its efforts, still needs more offensive firepower. Pitts is still just 24 years old, but after turning in a solid rookie season in 2021, he's averaged just 42.6 receptions across his last three seasons and with the Falcons having turnover within the coaching staff and at the quarterback position, it has thrown off his trajectory. The Chargers have a much more stable situation with Harbaugh and Herbert and could provide Pitts with the type of offense he can excel in, particularly one with only so many playmakers on the roster as of right now. If the Falcons are really keen on selling, this would be a move for the Chargers to at least check in on. MORE CHARGERS CONTENT Chargers should turn to familiar face following terrible Mike Williams news Chargers-Bills trade idea brings L.A. $24 million weapon for Justin Herbert Chargers predicted to select wide receiver high in first round after miserable 2025 season 4 Chargers starters who will be playing their final season with team in 2025 Chargers rookie gets huge respect, ranked ahead of Ashton Jeanty by former 3-time Pro Bowler
Yahoo
17-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Falcons' Kyle Pitts faces uncertain future after troubling contract update
Once considered a future standard-setter for the tight end market, Kyle Pitts now finds himself in a far more uncertain position. Three years removed from his record-setting rookie season, Pitts is set to play the 2025 season on his $10.88 million fifth-year option with "no whispers" of an extension, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's D. Orlando Ledbetter. Though his production has dipped, Pitts remains one of only five tight ends — along with Travis Kelce, George Kittle, Sam LaPorta and Trey McBride — to eclipse 600 receiving yards in each of the last two seasons. Still, that hasn't guaranteed him long-term security in Atlanta. A serious MCL tear in 2022 hindered his development, and despite perfect attendance the past two years, Pitts hasn't matched the dominance of his 1,026-yard rookie campaign. Now, entering a crucial contract year, the Falcons are taking a wait-and-see approach. Part of that hesitation may stem from a coaching staff reset. Offensive coordinator Zac Robinson wasn't in place for Pitts' peak season, and neither was head coach Raheem Morris. It's also no secret Atlanta's quarterback play has been turbulent — from Marcus Mariota to Desmond Ridder and an injury-plagued Kirk Cousins. That carousel contributed to Pitts' inconsistent numbers. NFL insider Jordan Schultz reported earlier this offseason that 'multiple teams have reached out to the Falcons about the availability of TE Kyle Pitts.' While Schultz noted that 'nothing is imminent,' Atlanta would reportedly require 'at least a Day 2 pick to even spark serious talks.' Trading Pitts midseason could re-enter the picture if the Falcons struggle out of the gate, but Blogging Dirty's Grayson Freestone argued against such a move. 'Kyle Pitts is someone the Falcons can't replace for 2025,' Freestone wrote. 'They have no receiving threat without him, and there aren't any outside options to fill his spot.' With second-year quarterback Michael Penix Jr. stepping into the starting role, Pitts' presence may be more vital than ever. His ability to serve as a security blanket could be key to Penix's development — and his own market value. If Pitts delivers, Atlanta could choose to franchise tag him in 2026. The 2024 tight end tag price was $13.8 million, a figure that may be favorable for a player still only 25 years old. The ball, quite literally, is in Pitts' court.
New York Times
15-07-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
How to avoid bad fantasy football draft picks and dooming your roster from the start
I'll bet you didn't know that Indiana Jones holds the key to fantasy football glory. Or, at least he's part of an instructive metaphor on how to avoid dooming your roster with poor picks. Remember that sequence at the end of 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade' where he's sent through a series of lethal challenges to retrieve the Holy Grail? After dodging spinning blades of death, he must navigate a room with a false floor so he doesn't plummet to his demise, then, faced with a plethora of similar objects, he must 'choose wisely' to secure the Grail. Make the wrong selection? Shrivel into skeleton dust. (Which is essentially the same effect as managers spending an early pick on Kyle Pitts … ) Advertisement What this cinematic climax illustrates is that the path to claiming your prize (the Grail/your championship) is not as simple as following a marked path and picking the shiniest object you see. So we're here to tell you that blindly selecting your roster based on the overall player rankings of your fantasy draft platform, or even a preferred pundit, is a great way to ensure your team plummets into a bottomless abyss, or what I like to call The Draft Chasms of Doom™. Player rankings seem a clean enough way of organizing your potential selections, but they obscure a crucial element that ultimately decides your fantasy fate, namely points. While players may rank, say, No. 4 and 5 in the quarterback rankings, No. 5 may project to produce significantly fewer points than No. 4. So, while you may think you're getting the next best player at a position, you could be walking off a projected points cliff because you're bypassing better alternatives that provide a bigger advantage over their positional peers. To state the obvious: In fantasy football, you are trying to score more points than your opponent each week. But the way those weekly scores accumulate is what really matters. You should really think of each position as a mini-battle with your weekly opponent. Each of those mini-battles aggregates to the final score. So the real path to weekly success and fantasy football domination is maximizing the point differential at the positions that you win, while minimizing the differential at positions you lose. Unless you're drafting against a group with the collective IQ of Derek Zoolander, you're not landing the top projected players at every position. But by paying attention to big drops in projected points, you can create the biggest possible scoring advantage at each position in your starting lineup. Advertisement Using Jake Ciely's 2025 player projections, we'll show you where to find the biggest drops in projected points at each of the four main positions. Meanwhile, Jake explains what his projections are seeing and provides advice on how to avoid those Draft Chasms of Doom. (Should you spring for one of the top-four QBs or wait late?) But if you want to get into the weeds on some fantasy football philosophy and why these draft drop zones are so critically important, read on. While rankings provide a draft map of sorts, what's really important is the gap in production between players at a position. That gap is ultimately what defines league-winning players, particularly when measured against their average draft position. Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen finished No. 1 and 2 among quarterback scoring in 2024, but Jackson put up 434.4 points to Allen's 385. Applying an advanced mathematical concept I like to call 'subtraction,' Jackson provided more than a 50-point edge over the next-best QB last season. Given every team must start a quarterback, in a 12-team league, that margin grows to a whopping 146 between Jackson's season and the No. 12 scoring QB (Justin Herbert). However, that assumes each of the 12 teams featured one of the top 12 QBs and one or more teams didn't have two QBs in that group, with one on the bench. Thus that 146-point gap between Jackson and Herbert (or 8.6 points over 17 weeks) represents the minimum advantage created by having Jackson facing the team with the worst QB in their fantasy league. In the words of Larry David, that's pret-ty, pret-ty, pretty good. Even going against the No. 2 QB in Allen, Jackson's team would have about a 3-point weekly edge. The more advantages like that you can create at each position, the more likely you are to win each week. Advertisement Of course, selecting all the top performers at each position is impossible in almost any draft format, especially in a snake draft. So to maximize your advantages, you have to identify potential values (by weighing projected points against average draft positions and positional scarcity) while not getting forced to fill a position with a sub-optimal starter. The latter is what we're focused on with our Draft Chasms of Doom. For example, using Jake's player projections (and assuming they're prophesied to become reality at the end of the 2025 season), whoever drafts Brock Bowers (223.2 projected points) will have a 4-plus point-per-game advantage at tight end over half of the teams in a 12-team league. But you're going to need to take Bowers in the early second round based on FantasyPros' consensus ADP (for half-point PPR, which is what Jake's projections use). There are running backs like Devon Achane (ADP 15), Jonathan Taylor (20) and Josh Jacobs (23) being drafted around that slot. Meanwhile, George Kittle is getting drafted in Round 4 and offers a 3.1 ppg edge on half the TEs in that league. Which is the better pick: Snag Bowers early or wait for Kittle and instead take one of Ciely's Top 10 RBs in Round 2? Glad you asked. The key terms here are 'scarcity' and 'marginal advantage.' The first refers to how many players at a position group are truly valuable relative to players at a replacement level. (Consult Jake's VORP rankings in the customizable cheat sheet and you'll see how each position group stacks up in terms of scarcity.) The second refers to the edge you can create for yourself by picking one player over another, basically the Bowers/Kittle example above. Marginal advantage is also important because it illustrates why players who put up more overall points across a season might not be the most helpful players for your team. These terms are important because of a key restriction placed on your team each week: Your starting lineup. While QBs may produce the most overall fantasy points of all players in a given season – Jackson outscored the top non-QB, Saquon Barkley, by 95.6 points in half PPR formats in 2024 – running backs and wide receivers are far more valuable. Why? You need more of them in your starting lineup. (Assuming you play in a one-QB league, obviously.) Remember that example above about the drop from Lamar Jackson to Herbert and the 8.6 point-per-game advantage it created for Jackson's teams last season? Do the same for Barkley – No. 1 RB with 338.8 points in 2024 – and the 'best worst' starting RB option last season – No. 24 Rachaad White, 174.1 points – and you get a gap of 164.7, or about 9.7 points per game on average. Even my English degree allows me to see that 9.7 is more than 8.6, which makes Barkley the more advantageous pick at his position. This also holds for the No. 1 vs. No. 24 wide receivers (Ja'Marr Chase and Zay Flowers), which featured a 167-point gap (9.8 ppg). Translation: Running backs and wide receivers have higher positional value than quarterbacks, particularly when you consider you really should draw the 'best worst' option for RB and WR around 30 instead of 24 to account for starters at the Flex position, which is standard in most leagues. Plot out the position projections on a graph and you can see clearly how the value decreases as you go deeper down the rankings. That 24-to-30 drop is particularly precipitous at running back, where last year Barkley's edge was almost 11.5 ppg over No. 30 RB Kareem Hunt. Scan Ciely's rankings this season and you'll note that you get to 'replacement level' running backs a lot faster (No. 44) than you do at wide receiver (No. 57). Based on that, you can provide a slight edge for running back value over wide receivers, but both are clearly greater than quarterbacks this season. Meanwhile, as alluded to earlier with Bowers and Kittle, tight ends provide a poignant example of how the Draft Chasms of Doom can impact your roster. Advertisement Hopefully by now you can see where we're going with this. And hopefully you also have a Gatorade and Cliff Bar handy to reinvigorate yourself after reading all these words. (No one said dominating your draft came without sacrifice!) Owning an advantage at one position is great, but you need to create advantages for as many position groups as possible. Take the top-ranked quarterback first overall and you're certainly not getting the top-ranked running back or wide receiver … or the second, or the third … and probably not even the 10th. This is what makes drafting a QB in the first round pure folly and why fantasy experts almost always wait until later rounds to draft their starting quarterback. The gaps in player point production we've discussed above represent, in raw points, a player's value over a starting-caliber replacement player, a concept that fuels the Moneyball-related acronym VORP (Value Over Replacement Player). It's through this prism we can clearly see the wisdom of taking players before a big drop in value at a position group. Those big dips are Draft Chasms of Doom. And you can navigate them by evaluating players' projected value against their average draft position (ADP). At quarterback in 2024, two QBs finished just behind No. 2 Josh Allen – Joe Burrow and Baker Mayfield, tied with 381.8 points. The advantage Josh Allen provided over those two QBs by scoring 3.2 more points over the full season? Almost non-existent. Now consider Allen was drafted somewhere between 22nd and 23rd on average – a second-round pick in a 12-team league. By contrast, Jackson was the fourth QB off the board, around No. 37 overall. Burrow and Mayfield? Around 65th and 152nd respectively. Through that lens, while Allen returned solid value for a second-round pick, Jackson's value was significantly higher, even selected a little over two rounds later. And Mayfield's? Astronomical. Now you just need to see the future for 2025 and draft accordingly. That's where Jake's projections come in. The differential between players' VORP values within a position is of vital importance because your draft can be unpredictable. When a position thins out quickly because someone drafts three QBs before Round 8, VORP can help you decide whether to continue the position run or pivot to another group and gain more value. Let's close with a hypothetical example, giving ourselves the No. 4 pick in the draft and examining a key decision point around our third selection, which falls No. 27 overall. Advertisement By ADP (per FantasyPros as of July 8), TE Trey McBride is the top player available at Pick 27 and would give us a nice edge at a position that thins quickly after the top four players. Based on Jake's projections, George Kittle is the better pick though and you can likely get him later (ADP 40). By waiting and selecting Kittle later, we can maximize the marginal advantage at another position while still creating a positional advantage at TE in a later round. Now let's look at quarterbacks. With Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen likely off the board, the top remaining QBs in this range all figure to go before our next pick, with Jayden Daniels, Jalen Hurts and Joe Burrow all projected to go before Pick 44. This means we're approaching one of those big drops at quarterback (depending how you feel about Justin Fields and Baker Mayfield). Meanwhile at RB, Alvin Kamara (97.97 VORP, which translates to a 122.4-point advantage over a replacement level RB) is still on the board and the top remaining WR is Tee Higgins, who holds a projected 83.4-point edge over a replacement receiver. If we were to take Daniels (the top remaining QB, by Jake's projections) the best remaining RBs for our next pick would fall around the Chuba Hubbard range (72.35 VORP) and DK Metcalf (71.12 VORP) for receivers. As Hubbard illustrates, the drop in RBs is much, much steeper than WRs. So too from Daniels (47.2) to the next tier of QBs (Fields at 36.3 VORP). In this example, based on Jake's projections, you should take Kamara and look closely at Kittle coming back in Round 4. We'll find our quarterback in a later round, knowing we've seized an advantage over most teams at running back and, if you can take Kittle, tight end. That's how the Chasms crumble, so to speak. Comprehending how this lens applies to draft strategy can keep you stepping smartly from one position to another, elevating your roster with your selections later this summer. Now, choose wisely and sip that sweet, sweet nectar of fantasy ambrosia at season's end. To look closer at some Chasms of particular interest, read Jake Ciely's analysis at quarterback (now live), running back (Wednesday), wide receiver (Thursday) and tight end (Friday). All scoring and draft selections based on a 12-team league with half-point PPR scoring. VORP and Projected Points Rankings pulled from Jake Ciely's Custom Cheat Sheet. ADP pulled from Fantasy Pros' half-point PPR listing as of July 8. (Top illustration: Will Tullos / The Athletic; Photos: Cooper Neill, Gregory Shamus, Wesley Hitt / Getty Images)
Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Atlanta Falcons pre-training camp 53-man roster projection
The Atlanta Falcons are just two weeks from the start of NFL training camp. Both rookies and veterans officially report on July 23, with the first practice taking place on July 24. Fans hoping to get a look at the team's two first-round picks will be able to attend 11 open training camp practices. The closer we get to the 2025 NFL season, the more likely it appears that the Falcons will keep high-priced backup quarterback Kirk Cousins on the roster. While there's a chance the team trades the Cousins before Week 1, there isn't much benefit to outright releasing him. Advertisement In our pre-training camp 53-man roster projection, two undrafted free agents make the team and the Falcons keep three quarterbacks. Quarterbacks (3) Michael Penix Jr. Kirk Cousins Easton Stick Running Backs (3) Bijan Robinson Tyler Allgeier Jashaun Corbin Wide Receivers (6) Drake London Darnell Mooney Ray-Ray McCloud KhaDarel Hodge Jamal Agnew (KR/PR) Nick Nash (UDFA) Tight Ends (3) Kyle Pitts Charlie Woerner Teagan Quitoriano Offensive Linemen (9) Jake Matthews Matthew Bergeron Ryan Neuzil Chris Lindstrom Kaleb McGary Storm Norton Elijah Wilkinson Kyle Hinton Jack Nelson (Rookie) Defensive Linemen (8) David Onyemata Ruke Orhorhoro Morgan Fox Zach Harrison Bralen Trice Ta'Quon Graham Kentavius Street Brandon Dorlus Linebackers (8) Kaden Elliss Jalon Walker (Rookie) James Pearce Jr. (Rookie) Leonard Floyd Troy Andersen Divine Deablo JD Bertrand Arnold Ebiketie Cornerbacks (6) A.J. Terrell Mike Hughes Dee Alford Clark Phillips III Billy Bowman (Rookie) Cobee Bryant (UDFA) Safeties (4) Jessie Bates III Jordan Fuller Xavier Watts (Rookie) DeMarcco Hellams Special Teams (3) K : Younghoe Koo P : Bradley Pinion LS: Liam McCullough EDITOR'S NOTE: A previous version of this story was published on June 7. This article originally appeared on Falcons Wire: Atlanta Falcons 53-man roster projection: Pre-training camp edition
