{"id":771903,"date":"2026-02-23T21:24:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T21:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/771903\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T21:24:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T21:24:22","slug":"perfect-55-million-contract-falcons-must-offer-kyle-pitts-after-franchise-tag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/771903\/","title":{"rendered":"Perfect $55 million contract Falcons must offer Kyle Pitts after franchise tag"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Atlanta Falcons<\/a> have already made some important moves this offseason. Atlanta hired Kevin Stefanski at head coach<\/a> to replace Raheem Morris back in January. They paired Stefanski with new president of football Matt Ryan<\/a> and general manager Ian Cunningham. That new regime just made their first important roster move of the 2026 offseason.<\/p>\n

The Falcons are planning to franchise tag tight end Kyle Pitts<\/a>. That should keep the superstar tight end in Atlanta on a one-year contract worth more than $15 million.<\/p>\n

There was no guarantee that Pitts would stay in Atlanta this offseason.<\/p>\n

Pitts has underwhelmed as a former fourth overall pick. He did manage 68 receptions for 1,026 receiving yards during his rookie season. However, Pitts suffered an MCL injury<\/a> the next year that cut his sophomore season short.<\/p>\n

It was all downhill from there until the 2025 season. Pitts broke out in 2025, hauling in a career-high 88 receptions for 928 yards and five touchdowns.<\/p>\n

Now Pitts could be a part of the team’s future after all.<\/p>\n

The Falcons reportedly want to keep Pitts around on a long-term contract instead of the franchise tag. Both sides would need to strike a deal on an extension before July to avoid needing the franchise tag for the 2026 season.<\/p>\n

Now the question becomes: what could a potential long-term contract between Pitts and the Falcons look like?<\/p>\n

Below we will explore the perfect contract the Falcons should offer Pitts after franchise tagging him on Monday.<\/p>\n

How much is Kyle Pitts worth in 2026?\"AtlantaNathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Pitts is a difficult player to place a value on.<\/p>\n

The veteran tight end is only a tight end in name. In fact, he looks and plays more like a wide receiver than anything else. That alone makes it difficult to determine where he will place his own value during contract negotiations.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the best place to start is comparing Pitts to other players to establish some sort of baseline Fortunately, the folks over at Spotrac are already on top of that.<\/p>\n

Spotrac gives Pitts a projected market value of roughly $10.8 million per season<\/a> on a new contract. They compared Pitts to other comparable tight ends who have received contract extensions.<\/p>\n

Dalton Schultz and Jonnu Smith both got $12 million per season on their most recent contracts. There’s also Jake Ferguson, who received a four-year, $50 million extension during the summer of 2025.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Spotrac’s \u201cbase calculated value\u201d suggests that Atlanta should offer Pitts a six-year contract worth $64.32 million at just under $10.8 million per season.<\/p>\n

I think that is a pretty fair estimation of Pitts’ value. But I have a slightly different idea for what a potential contract extension could look like.<\/p>\n

Why the Falcons should offer Pitts $55 million contract this offseason<\/p>\n

NFL players do not often seek longer than four years. By agreeing to a six-year contract, Pitts would lose the ability to head back to free agency one more time during his prime years for another payday.<\/p>\n

That is important because the salary cap is always increasing. If a player locks in their value for the next six years, sooner or later they will be underpaid. Sometimes severely underpaid.<\/p>\n

However, I can understand why Pitts might want some assurances that he could remain a Falcon for life. So perhaps a long-term contract does make sense in this case.<\/p>\n

Personally, I think the Falcons should offer Pitts a five-year contract worth $55 million. Such a contract would keep Pitts in Atlanta through the 2030 season at $11 million of average annual value.<\/p>\n

Atlanta only has $26.46 million in cap space in 2026<\/a>, which could limit how big Pitts’ contract value is in year one. But with a five-year contract, the Falcons can structure that deal in clever ways to limit Pitts’ cap hit in 2026.<\/p>\n

I could see both sides being quite happy with this long-term contract.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Atlanta Falcons have already made some important moves this offseason. Atlanta hired Kevin Stefanski at head coach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":771904,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2074],"tags":[223,254,2554,224,7,6153,22353,6,18732],"class_list":{"0":"post-771903","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-falcons","8":"tag-atlanta","9":"tag-atlanta-falcons","10":"tag-atlantafalcons","11":"tag-falcons","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-kyle-pitts","14":"tag-mini-editorials","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-nfl-editorials"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116122057830628664","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=771903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/771904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=771903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=771903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=771903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}