Is it time to give up on Kyle Pitts?

The majority of Falcons fans have hit a crossroads this year when it comes to Kyle Pitts. About half of the Falcons fans believe in him, and the other are ready to ship him away for spare parts. Since his rookie season Kyle Pitts has not jumped off of the stat page, and this has many fans ready to get rid of the young tight end. I'm here to tell you why they are wrong.

Kyle Pitts started his career exactly how he was supposed to with 1,000 receiving yards, but since that season he has been much to desire. This can be interpreted at face value or we can look in depth and truly get to the bottom of this. Following that season with Matt Ryan throwing Pitts the ball, the Falcons traded Matt Ryan to the Colts after a failed attempt to attain Deshaun Watson, phew what a bullet we dodged there. Fantasy football nerds looked at Kyle Pitts as one of the best tight ends following his rookie year, and they have completely turned on him after he has not planned out for their fantasy football teams. Kyle Pitts in his two seasons following his rookie year has had to hop through every obstacle possible. Pitts went through three different quarterbacks, Marcus Mariota, Desmond Ridder, and Taylor Heinicke. We all know about the poor performance for all three of these quarterbacks for the Falcons. I mean who are we kidding none of these quarterbacks are even with the team anymore and one of them isn't in the NFL at all. Quarterback play enough would have been enough to provide an excuse for Kyle Pitts lack of stats, but to top it all off Pitts tore his ACL in year two. An ACL tear has always been a two year injury, that is until Adrian Peterson came back to his normal self the year following his ACL tear. Kyle Pitts clearly was not able to recover in the same fashion that Adrian Peterson did, even though he was able to return to the field the year following his injury. Pitts was clearly not himself and seemed to not have the same speed and cutting ability that he came into the NFL with, but this has seemed to come back to him. My last excuse for Kyle Pitts was the person calling the plays for Pitts. Arthur Smith should be arrested for his use of the Falcons' young offensive stars. I watched a third string tight end run an end around on the goal line, that should be enough to nullify any judgement of Kyle Pitts stats in his time with Arthur Smith calling the plays. I'm not going to sit here and make excuses over and over and tell you that is why you should believe me. Here come the pros to keeping Kyle Pitts around.

Kyle Pitts has dramatically improved as a blocker since his rookie year. This was one of the main knocks that people had for him when he was grabbing his 1,000 yards, but now that the receiving stats have dropped off and his blocking has improved nobody wants to talk about blocking anymore. This is an integral part of the position that Kyle Pitts plays, and he has made dramatic improvement in this phase of his game. Kyle Pitts has gained a willingness to block and block with aggression that he did not have when he first came into the NFL. Pitts has had a microscope on him because of his draft position, but when you look at his stats this year against other tight ends you see a different story. Kyle Pitts has been the number twelve tight end for all the fantasy nerds out there. There has been a trend of tight ends not having stats that jump off the page in this season. Look at the consensus best tight end in the league this season. Travis Kelce has also looked "invisible" this season, and if the officials make the right call on the clear pass interference when the Falcons played the chiefs we are not having this conversation right now. Either way the chiefs are winning games, and that is why Chiefs fans are not banging on the table to trade Travis Kelce. The Falcons are winning games too, games that in the past couple of seasons they would not have won, and that brings me to my main point. While I like fantasy football, and understand why Pitts is getting hate from that community of people. The thing that does not matter at all in fantasy football is wins, and the Falcons are getting them with the help of Kyle Pitts. I am not saying that I am happy with the stats that Kyle Pitts has put up this season, but I am saying that as long as the Falcons are winning Kyle Pitts should get a little leeway. So as the great Aaron Rodgers once said "R E L A X."

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