Argue With Myself- Dalton Kincaid

The Buffalo Bills traded up in 2023 to get ahead of the Dallas Cowboys and selected tight end, Dalton Kincaid. In the pre-draft process, Kincaid was touted as one of the top two tight ends in a very deep class. He lands on the Bills who have a high-powered offense and a great quarterback in Josh Allen. He has been a rocket ship moving up rookie draft boards at times going as high as the 5th pick. Will this hype actually turn into fantasy production or will it leave fantasy managers wanting?

Optimistic Me
Dalton Kincaid is an amazing athlete. He is 6’4’’ 246 lbs. He runs great routes and is such a great ball catcher that he is going to be amazing in the NFL. He tracks the ball so well and is great with the ball in his hands. He is hard to bring down. He was the top tight end on most people's drafts because of it. How can he not produce in the NFL? We had him in our first-round mock draft. 

Pessimistic Me

Yes, Kincaid is an athlete. He should have a very solid NFL career. The issue is that tight ends overall take time to develop. If you look at the three best tight ends in the history of the league, Travis Kelce, Antonio Gates, and Tony Gonzalez they combined for 57 receptions, 757 yards, and 4 touchdowns in their rookie years. Even if you take the top three current tight ends of Kelce, Mark Andrews, and George Kittle they combine for 77 receptions. 1067 and 5 touchdowns in their first year. Those stats would have put Kincaid as TE6 and TE3 respectively. Now that's combining 3 players to make those stats. I don't think Kincaid is better than those players combined in his rookie year.

Optimistic Me

Yes, that's fine. Kelce didn't play his first year and his second year was a beast. Even Gates and Gonzalez weren't great in their first years but turned it on. Also, none of the guys were first-round draft picks. That says a lot about the talent Kincaid is. We are in a slightly different era of football. More passing, less running. Tight ends are being used differently now.

Pessimistic Me

Okay, I’ll give you that things are different now. Let's talk about other tight ends taken in the first round. Since 2013 there have been nine guys taken in the first round. Kyle Pitts, Noah Fant, T.J Hockenson, Hayden Hurst, David Njoku, Evan Engram, O.J. Howard, Eric Ebron, and Tyler Eifert. If you average their rookie years you get 41.6 receptions, 470.2 yards, and 3.1 touchdowns. That gives you 106 fantasy points in PPR settings and would make him TE22 in 2022. Even if you just take the most recent three you average 46 receptions, 651 yards, and 2 touchdowns. That's 123 points making them TE16. Do we really think Kincaid can be that good in his rookie year?

Optimistic Me

Yes. He is on the Bills. They have one of the top offenses in the league. Josh Allen is a top 5 quarterback in the league. The Bills threw the ball the 11th most last year at 59.44% of the time. Allen had 573 passing attempts last year which was 8th most and that was with a bad elbow for most of the season. This year he will be healthy and should get back closer to the 645 number we saw in 2021. The Bills have come out and said they want Allen to run the ball less which should also mean some of those will be passed instead. He had 126 rushing attempts. If he cuts that number in half that opens up 63 more opportunities. Conservative number we give half of that to passing attempts that's an extra 31 passing attempts. Even if you just add that to his 573 from last year that put him over the 600 attempt mark which puts him just outside the top 5.

Pessimistic Me

Yes, the Bills have a high-powered passing offense. But they do want Allen to run more so maybe they focus on the run game more. They did sign Damien Harris to add a more dynamic rusher to go with James Cook and traded mid-season for Nyhiem Hines and Head coach Sean McDermott has said they want to get Hines worked into the offense more. 2021 was Brian Daboll as OC and 2022 was Ken Dorsey so maybe that trend of passing attempts keeps coming down. They also added Justin Shorter in the draft, be it in the later rounds, and signed Trent Sherfield and Deonte Harty to the team. That many new pass-catchers and three running backs who can be involved through the air just means even less work to go around.

Optimistic Me

Yes, they added those guys but neither has done anything in their career so far. McDermot also came out and said the envisions Kincaid being more of a slot receiver vs an inline tight end. They let both Jameson Crowder and Isaiah McKenzie leave in free agency. Kincaid can slide into that role and be a target machine. Even if their passing attempts stay around the 550 mark there is plenty of targets to go around and make Kincaid a star. He could pass Gabe Davis as the second target-getter this year. Shorter is a tall receiver who won't play in the slot. Devin Singletary saw 52 targets so those can be divided among Cook, Harris, and Hines. 

Pessimistic Me

Yes, the Bills let both of their slot guys go in the offseason. But does that mean  Kincaid automatically fills that role? To assume that Kincade will basically convert to a full-time slot receiver is reckless. Even if he was the Bills ran 3 or more wide receiver sets 76% of the time. While that is a lot none of the slot receivers really shinned. Only once did a single slot receiver play over 70% of the team's snaps and that was Isaiah McKenzie in week 12. That was after Jameson Crowder was hurt. In fact, between Crowder, McKenzie, and Khalil Shakir there were only 3 games where any of them had over 5 receptions. Shakir is still on the team. He played very limited snaps in his rookie year. He will take the next step in his development. He should be the main slot receiver on 3 wide sets.

Optimistic Me

Yes, the Bills rotated guys in the slot role but look at the weeks where there was only one guy. Week 5. No Mckenzie or Crowder. Shakir played 69.6% of the total snaps and played in the slot 89% of the time. He finished with a stat line of 5 targets, 3 receptions, 75 yards, and a touchdown. He put up 16 fantasy points. You brought up the three games where they got over 5 targets. You failed to mention that in five other games, they got five targets. In Week 12 which was the one game where McKenzie played over 70% of the snaps, he saw 10 targets, 6 receptions for 96 yards, and a touchdown. Two really good games where with only one slot receiver they were able to produce. 

Pessimistic Me

Yes, those two games they did produce. But that is two games out of 17. The Bills still have Shakir on the roster. Brought in Harty and Shorter and still have Dawson Knox. Knox had a letdown season in 2022 for fantasy managers after posting nine touchdowns in 2021. Last year he only saw 65 targets catching 48 of them for 517 yards and six touchdowns. It was good enough to put him as the TE 14 in PPR leagues. He isn't going anywhere. He just signed a 4-year contract to be with the Bills. He has chemistry with Allen. To think that a rookie tight end will be able to beat out Knox and Shakir for targets might be a bit of hype not reality. Draft capital matters but let's not forget that tight ends take time to develop.

Optimistic Me

I think there are some great indicators for  Kincaid going into this year. If you look at Weeks 10 through 14 last year Knox lined up and ran routes on over 55% of the time. He racked up 23 targets, 17 receptions, and 185 yards in that span. He had 3 games with over 5 targets. It's a sign that they can use a tight end as a slot receiver.  Kincaid is a better receiver than Knox. In those games, Mckenzie was still playing a ton of snaps and running routes from the slot as well so with him gone we can see  Kincaid have a bigger role. Between Crowder, McKenzie and Devin Singletary leaving the Bills have 130 vacated targets. Even if  Kincaid only gets half of those he would be top 20 in targets for last year. 65 targets would be a nice bump for a rookie. That's how many Knox had last year and finished as TE 14. If he can then siphon off some of Knox's targets I don't think it's out of the question for him to see 85 targets. That would put him in the top 10 for tight ends. He is the same height as Knox so both could be threats in the red zone. Let's not forget that McDermott was on the Panthers' staff when Greg Olsen saw over 100 targets in multiple years. He was the defensive coordinator but Ken Dorsey was the quarterbacks coach there as well. They made it to the Super Bowl in 2015 with Olsen leading the team in receiving. 

Pessimistic Me

I’m not doubting that  Kincaid can be good. But at his draft price, you are probably going to be disappointed. Yes, it takes less for a tight end to become fantasy relevant. If Kincade gets 65+ targets and 3 touchdowns he will be a borderline TE1 for fantasy. He is being drafted ahead of all the second-round wide receivers and at times head of fellow first-round draft capital guys like Zay Flowers. If you drafted Knox last ahead of the second-round wide receivers in the draft you would have been right to do so 4 out of 6 times. Knox was outscored by Christian Watson and George Pickens. That's just straight fantasy points. If you look at what they averaged per game Knox was at 4.06 targets per game and .375 touchdowns. His reception number would have been eclipsed by both Watson and Pickens as well as Alec Pierce and Wan’Dale Robinson. His touchdown per-game average is the best out of the group. He only was really better than Skyy Moore and Tyquan Thornton. And that's Dawson Knox who was playing in his 4th season. Now we are expecting a rookie tight end to beat out second-round wide receivers? The price is too high for me considering the questions of his usage. If he was going mid or maybe early second round I could understand the hype but to take him mid to late first seems like a pathway to disappointment.

Optimistic Me

I think his upside this year is there for sure but it's also a dynasty buy for the future. None of the wide receivers landed in great spots. They all seem poised to be year two producers. Kincaid has the ability to outscore them this year and then be attached to a great offense for the rest of his career. If Knox can be TE14 last year with minimal work why can't that be Kincade? The threshold to be a top 10 tight end any given week is really just scoring a touchdown. The threshold to being a WR2 any given week is a touchdown and yards. It's just a bigger group of players so standing out is harder for wide receivers. Even if Zay Flowers gets to be the second receiving option on the Ravens behind Mark Andrews he won't be great. Last year Demarcus Robinson finished second on the team with 78 targets. He finished with 103. Fantasy points. WR69 overall and also 56 fantasy points behind Knox. So if you drafted Robinson over Knox last year you were let down. The same could be said for Flowers over Kincaid. The upside is the key. The draft class as a whole isn't great after the top 4 picks. I believe Kincaid has a better path to fantasy points than Jonathan Mingo, Jayden Reed, Rashee Rice, and Marvin Mims. 

Where should Dalton Kincaid be drafted? It all depends on which side you agree with more. After the mental back a fourth I’m probably out on him at his draft cost. I’m not sure I want a guy splitting time with another tight end and two other slot receivers as my first-round pick. I personally don't see a pathway for him to become a big enough weapon in that offense. He has the athletic ability but they spread the ball around too much. Five years from now who knows what he will be? Probably a top 10 tight end in the league. I’m a buyer in the second round just not the first.