Kyle Pitts, best player in the draft, creates no buzz as a tight end
Updated Friday, April 30, 2021
From what the football cognoscenti are saying, the best player in Thursday night’s draft was Kyle Pitts of Florida. He would have been the first chosen if not for one flaw: he plays the wrong position, tight end instead of quarterback.
He had to wait for three quarterbacks to go before him — Trevor Lawrence, Zach Wilson and Trey Lance – before the Atlanta Falcons chose him to help rejuvenate 36-year-old QB Matt Ryan, who after all is a year younger than reigning MVP Aaron Rodgers. But that’s another story.
This is the Year of the Quarterback, but receivers were keeping pace in the opening round of Roger Goodell’s Draftathon in Cleveland. After the three quarterbacks left the board, there were three receivers: Pitts, followed by LSU’s JaMarr Chase going to Cincinnati and then Alabama’s Jaylen Waddle to Miami.
The biggest surprise was that Waddle went before his quarterback, the cerebral, accurate but athletically limited Mac Jones. The San Francisco 49ers traded up to secure Jones at No. 3. At that time their coach, Kyle Shanahan, publicly called Trey Lance “a very good backup.”
As they saw more of Lance and his improvisations, they moved to the little-known quarterback from little North Dakota State. Niner Nation is wondering if Lance will be another Carson Wentz. Or if they want him to be.
Or if they should have stayed where they were, drafted Mac Jones and not given up huge draft capital for a quarterback who’s played one game in two years. Jones was claimed at No. 15, but he’s likely to find it was worth the wait to join the New England Patriots, the NFL’s most successful team over the past two decades.
“Secretly, I really wanted to go to the Patriots all along,” Jones said. His father, Gordon Jones, pointed out that “he’s been coached by the greatest collegiate coach of all time in Coach Saban, and now he’s going on to perhaps the greatest professional coach of all time, Coach Belichick.”
Jones has been cited by numerous mock-drafters as “the most NFL-ready” of the rookie QBs. Mike Tannenbaum, a former general manager in the NFL, said, “It was an outstanding piece of work by Bill Belichick and the Patriots. Mac Jones was in the debate to be one of the top 5 overall, and to get him at 15 and give up no draft capital is remarkable.”
But as NFL-ready as Jones may be, a former assistant to Belichick doubts Jones starts as a rookie. Chris Simms said on Pro Football Talk: “I know Mac Jones is smart, but no drop-back passing game is more complicated than the Patriots’ – the hardest offensive system to learn in football. They will have a one-year experiment with Cam Newton. Maybe they keep Jones on the bench for a year or two. But then he takes over and runs a Tom Brady-type offense. Watch out, NFL.”
The most disappointed fans attending Draftathon appeared to be the contingent from Carolina – as blue as their clothes.
They had hoped for Mac Jones at No. 8. When the team chose Jaycee Horn, obscure defensive back from South Carolina, booing broke out. Horn in the most reputable mock drafts was ranked behind the speedier Patrick Surtain II, cornerback from Alabama.
Surtain, whose father played for 12 years as an NFL corner, went ninth, to the Denver Broncos, another team whose fans wanted a quarterback. They could see Jones or Justin Fields supplanting the duo of Teddy Bridgewater and Drew Lock.
When the Dallas Cowboys at No. 10 couldn’t get Surtain, they traded down, surprisingly enough, to division rival Philadelphia, at No. 12, with Dallas picking up a third-rounder. Philly wanted DeVonta Smith, the Heisman-winning Slim Reaper, to reunite him with one of his college quarterbacks, Jalen Hurts. There were two other aerial reunions during the evening, with Chase reconnecting with Joe Burrow and Waddle with Tua Tagovailoa.
With Philly staying with Hurts, a second-rounder last year, the door opened for the Chicago Bears to get what they’ve needed for 70 years, a quarterback, and they chose Justin Fields over Mac Jones. Makes you wonder if the Alabama receivers were better than the quarterback and how long that’s been the case.
So there were plenty of storylines on Thursday night and the morning after. But there still hasn’t been much said about Kyle Pitts, the 6-6, 250-pound, 4.4-dashing tight end who caught 12 touchdowns last year and averaged 17.9 yards per reception. There were a few comparisons to Megatron, but without a connection to a young quarterback, there can’t be much focus on Kyle Pitts.
