The Falcons have now prolonged two of their three top-10 picks on the skill positions. They’re following their Drake London payday with a Kyle Pitts re-up. Pitts has a three-year deal in place, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports.
Given the franchise tag in March, Pitts will now be tied to a three-year, $54MM contract through the 2028 season. The deal includes $36MM fully guaranteed, Schefter adds. While this shouldn’t be a market-topping tight end accord, the $36MM guarantee number actually did plenty to entice Pitts, who’s coming off a bounce-back 2025 season.
At $18MM per yr, Pitts becomes the NFL’s third-highest-paid tight end. George Kittle and Trey McBride saw 2025 extensions move the TE bar past the $19MM-AAV mark, and as this space has continually tabbed this position as being underpaid, teams with quality tight ends proceed to benefit from a glacial market. As wide receivers are actually past $42MM per yr, the NFL doesn’t have a $20MM-AAV tight end.
Still just 25 despite being drafted in 2021, Pitts has been a somewhat frustrating player — one who regressed after a 1,000-yard rookie yr. Pitts’ saw his second season shortened by injury (an MCL tear) and said midway through the 2023 season he was not 100% recovered. Pitts still averaged greater than 12 yards per reception in 2023 and ’24, playing every Atlanta game in that span.
The Falcons had seen quarterback issues cover most of Pitts’ rookie contract, as they’ve been unable to seek out a reliable passer since trading Matt Ryan to the Colts in 2022. Ryan is now back because the team’s top front office presence, and he now has the interesting distinction of authorizing an extension for a player he once targeted as a quarterback.
Ryan and GM Ian Cunningham signed off on a $15MM Pitts franchise tag, doing so after the 6-foot-6 tight end’s 928-yard season. Even though it could have made sense for the Falcons to hold Pitts on the tag to judge him further, they are going to go for what may turn into a team-friendly deal — because the TE market stays stuck south of the $20MM-AAV bar while the receiver market soars.
I discussed in a recent Trade Rumors Front Office post that teams with solid pass-catching options at tight end are in good positions, contract-wise, and Kittle’s deal may remain within the lead until the Raiders pay Brock Bowers (though, Tucker Kraft and Sam LaPorta are candidates to leapfrog Pitts’ contract and the 2 NFC West TEs’ deals first).
Pitts’ $36MM guarantee at signing now leads the pack at tight end. Kittle, who’s seven years older than Pitts, received $35MM up front on his second 49ers extension. McBride is the one other TE who collected greater than $30MM at signing, landing $32.5MM from the Cardinals last yr. Pitts has not matched McBride’s pace, but he is sort of a yr younger despite entering the NFL a season prior. Atlanta franchise-tagging the previous Florida standout also gave him a baseline negotiating point, and he’ll accept a powerful guarantee package in lieu of pushing the AAV bar higher than Kittle and McBride did.
The Falcons made Pitts the highest-drafted tight end because the merger in 2021, with Terry Fontenot‘s first pick as GM going to the ex-Gators star. Chosen fourth overall — behind three quarterbacks — that yr, Pitts proceeded to hitch Mike Ditka because the only rookie-year tight ends to clear 1,000 receiving yards (Bowers has since turn into the third rookie TE to accomplish that). Pitts tallied 1,026 yards as a rookie, though he only scored one touchdown. Pitts has topped out at five TDs in a season (2025); that got here at a key point on his profession timeline, because it paved the way in which for a franchise tag and now this payday.
Atlanta now employs the NFL’s third-highest-paid players at tight end and wide receiver, with London scoring a four-year, $141.1MM extension earlier this month. The team drafted London eighth overall in 2022 after which used the No. 8 overall pick on one other skill player — Bijan Robinson — a yr later. Robinson is viewed as a transparent extension priority for the Falcons, who’re poised to take the interesting step of firing a GM but extending his first three first-round picks.
Fontenot, in fact, went 0-for-5 in playoff berths and left the franchise and not using a 2026 first-round pick and left the team with an enormous dead money bill (spread through 2027 via a Ryan-initiated post-June 1 release) from the Kirk Cousins contract. However the Robinson-London-Pitts trio will represent the core of Kevin Stefanski‘s offense, which shouldn’t be yet certain to be quarterbacked by Michael Penix Jr. or Tua Tagovailoa.
Before being tagged, Pitts expressed interest in being a part of Stefanski’s offense. After Stefanski helped former Browns franchise-tagged TE David Njoku excel despite unreliable QB play, Pitts will likely be a central a part of no less than the following two Falcons attacks. The fully guaranteed money will effectively ensure Pitts stays on this contract through 2027.