Kyle Pitts vs. George Kittle - Who Should I Draft in 2024 Fantasy Football?

Should fantasy football players draft Kyle Pitts or George Kittle during their 2024 fantasy football drafts? Kevin Tompkins examines the case for both tight ends.

Kyle Pitts has disappointed fantasy football managers in every subsequent season after his fantastic rookie season when he amassed over 1,000 receiving yards at just 21 years old.

Meanwhile, George Kittle has been a fantasy football stalwart for over half a decade and is still running strong in a highly efficient San Francisco 49ers offense.

Which tight end should fantasy players draft in 2024? Let’s dive into it.

• 2025 fantasy football rankings
• Running back (RB) fantasy football rankings
• Wide receiver (WR) fantasy football rankings
• Tight end (TE) fantasy football rankings
• Quarterback (QB) fantasy football rankings
• FLEX fantasy football rankings
• Defense (D/ST) fantasy football rankings
• Kicker (K) fantasy football rankings
• Dynasty fantasy football rankings

Kyle Pitts’ 2024 Fantasy Football Outlook

It's been three seasons since the fantasy football community anointed Pitts a "generational" prospect as he went No. 8 overall in the 2021 NFL Draft. Heading into Pitts' fourth season in 2024, we have fewer questions about the offensive environment with head coach Arthur Smith fired at the end of 2023.

New offensive coordinator Zac Robinson should be able to make much better use of Pitts as he brings a "Rams-lite" philosophy as part of the Sean McVay system in Los Angeles for the last five seasons. That system features more 11 personnel, higher routes per dropback for starting pass-catchers, and vastly reduced utilization for backup tight ends and receivers.

A lot of Pitts' wrongs will be righted from the quarterback side of things, too, with Kirk Cousins under center for the Falcons this season. Cousins adds veteran stability and confidence that the team has not had at QB since Matt Ryan.

Over the past three seasons, Kyle Pitts has ranked dead last among 40 qualifying tight ends with a 67.5% catchable target rate.

Pairing him with Kirk Cousins (third-lowest inaccurate/uncatchable pass rate among 44 qualifying QBs in that span) just seems too good to be true pic.twitter.com/926rz3W4zg

— Kate Magdziuk (@katemagdziuk) March 12, 2024

With a sharp increase in 11 personnel on tap for Pitts thanks to Robinson's offensive roots, plus Cousins as the starting quarterback, the sky is truly the limit for Pitts in 2024.

George Kittle's 2024 Fantasy Football Outlook

In 2023, Kittle finished as TE5 in fantasy points per game (12.7) in PPR formats, but it was mixed in with plenty of spike weeks as there were seven games where Kittle finished as a TE2 or worse. Still, as a key cog in the efficiency monster that is the San Francisco 49ers offense, Kittle will be relied upon heavily in 2024. But so will Christian McCaffrey, Brandon Aiyuk, and Deebo Samuel Sr. Therein lies the rub; not everybody can get the ball at the same time.

Among all qualifying tight ends with 200+ routes, Kittle was the top tight end in the league in yards per route run (2.22) and had the highest aDOT of his career with 9.9 yards. He's still an elite player entering his age-31 season. Despite having top-five finishes in each of the last three seasons with no more than 94 targets per season, nothing should change for Kittle in 2024 regarding his elite TE status.

Who Should I Draft in Fantasy Football?

It's truly a coin flip here between Pitts and Kittle for 2024. Both tight ends have the downfield upside and the quarterbacks to feed them the ball with weekly overall TE1 upside in any given week. However, there needs to be a winner in this head-to-head battle.

Picking one of these tight ends over the other is a tough decision, but my choice is Pitts. With the dramatic shift in offensive philosophy for the Falcons, Pitts should get back into fantasy managers' good graces this season as one of the few fantasy tight ends with overall TE1 upside in 2024.

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