How early should we really be drafting Kyle Pitts?

Yesterday's Reddit Q&A recap, plus post-hype targets

I did another Reddit AMA yesterday, and last time I did that I copied over a few of the answers, because I felt they were pretty notable, and you guys seemed to enjoy that. I’m not going to do that again this morning, but I wanted to point anyone interested in me answering Q&A in that direction, especially those of you on the free plan here that do still like to get access to the analysis where you can.

There’s a ton of player-specific stuff there on Deebo Samuel, Cooper Kupp, Trevor Lawrence, Zamir White, Kimani Vidal, a list of “overhyped” players, and stuff like the “best draft picks for 2025 keepers” that came to mind.

I also answered some strategy stuff, including what types of players to target in points per first downs leagues, how late I’d be willing to wait on a RB in a Zero RB build, and more on that idea of drafting two early TEs in a home league (which I briefly hit on in the home league strategy guide as a not-necessary but maybe interesting luxury strategy if you have some pick flexibility in a particular room).

But I will leave you with one topic here. While looking over that AMA just now to send out to you all, I saw one straggler question that came in overnight that I had to answer, and I’ll leave that here — plus some additional thoughts — for anyone who hung out yesterday in the AMA but might have missed it:

When should we really be drafting Kyle Pitts?

My answer:

Probably no later than TE3, but when guys disappoint ADP, they see a legit discount the next year. Being willing to draft guys that fantasy managers are done with is one of the last clear edges that doesn't go away, if we’re being honest. The guy who comes to mind is Year 3 Todd Gurley, who was coming off a down second season when he had gone very high, and was suddenly going at like RB10, and then he led the NFL in yards from scrimmage and TDs. Oh, at TE, Mark Andrews' best season in 2021 was the first time he was priced down in TE Premium, where I remember taking him in the early third round on an important team in 2020, and then the bet was the same (BAL pass volume) in 2021 but he went in the fifth or so (and it hit). Tee Higgins played hurt last year but is going multiple rounds later this year as a guy who is getting great camp buzz and where the bet is pretty similar to last year, but the hype just isn't there after he disappointed. People are undervaluing Chris Olave because he hasn't had the huge breakout. People are undervaluing Javonte Williams relative to his profile, because he disappointed ADP last year. There are a ton of these examples that honestly boil down to too many people saying "he sucked last year and I don't want to draft him." (And to be clear, I do think guys who have legit bad seasons should get cheaper. But there's a line there that's not well-analyzed.)

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I have more to add. I think part of this phenomenon is the analysts who were inclined to be against that particular player get more emboldened the next offseason, and the analysts who were inclined to support that player deal with the fallout of being wrong and not wanting to martingale things. We’re human, and the human side of the game is always really interesting to analyze and try to exploit.

I’m lucky that I don’t have to rank Pitts that high, honestly, and for guys like Jaxon Smith-Njigba, it’s absolutely on my mind. But I’m also trying to weigh everything and give the best advice I can in 2024, and being out on a guy who is cheap after he missed last year just because I can’t stand to be wrong on the same guy twice is probably the worst thing I could do as an analyst. I’m sure some of you think, “One thing I wish Ben would do less of is chase those guys he always stays in on even after they fail,” and to that I’ll note that I do move off some guys every year that I was on last year.

I was into Romeo Doubs last year and am well below ADP now. I took too much Rashod Bateman last year and there’s been some hype that I’m not really buying. I’ve been seeing Chris Godwin as a lot more boring of a veteran than I did last year. I can’t get there with Pat Freiermuth, even after I was a fan of his profile in a big way going into last year. I was once very high on Justin Fields’ potential, and now am more measured, and very aware he might just have a fatal flaw. I like Gabe Davis’ fit in Jacksonville and absolutely understand why they paid him from a “real football” sense but think we have enough evidence now that he’s not likely to earn the short-to-intermediate targets and that deep-only profile just doesn’t play in the modern NFL enough to really matter for fantasy.

This is just a list of guys I saw while quickly skimming my ranks. But the point is that it’s not all Javonte and JSN and Pitts and Wan’Dale Robinson — those are just the ones where, yeah, I liked the profile, and I don’t think they deserve to have fallen as far as they did, especially when factors have changed for a bigger 2024.

Obviously if I was high on them before, I saw something. If I chose to be lower on every guy I missed on the next year, I’d just be an analyst with no backbone, afraid to be looked at as biased or something.

So let me just say clearly that Kyle Pitts is probably the skeleton key to 2024 (again, for the first time). It will absolutely be emotionally difficult to cheer him on again if the points don’t come, but we joked about this idea of drinking “truth serum” on Ship Chasing recently, and if you held my feet to the fire, I really and truly believe we’re going to see Pitts hit this year, finally.

Until next time!