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Kyle Pitts Jr.‘s Breakout Game Was Best Ever Fantasy Football Performance for a TE
Kyle Pitts Jr. had the game of his life on Thursday. Pitts caught a career-high 11 passes for a career-high 166 yards and three touchdowns in a 29–28 win over the Buccaneers. It was the Pitts that was promised when Atlanta took him with the No. 4 pick in the 2021 NFL Draft.
It was just his fourth career 100-plus yard game and his first since his rookie year. His three touchdowns equaled or surpassed his season totals from his first, second and third years in the NFL and he'd never had double-digit catches in a game before last night.
Pitts became the first tight end to score three touchdowns and have 150 or more yards in a single game since Shannon Sharpe had 13 catches for 153 yards and three touchdowns for the Broncos against the Chargers in 1996. He was just the seventh tight end to ever do it and that's dating back to Mike Ditka in 1961.
Kyle Pitts Sr. is the first tight end with 150 receiving yards and three touchdowns in a game since Shannon Sharpe in 1996 Week 6 against the Chargers 😳 pic.twitter.com/JImWYWNK7f
— ESPN Insights (@ESPNInsights) December 12, 2025
With all those yards, receptions and scores it has to be the highest-scoring performance in fantasy football history by a tight end. Even if you were somehow playing fantasy football back in ’96, Pitts had more yards and catches than Sharpe did in his biggest game.
And most importantly for fantasy owners, Pitts did it when it matters most: during the first week of the fantasy football playoffs.
With three games remaining, Pitts has a chance to reach 1,000 yards for the first time since his rookie year. And with one more touchdown he'll have a career-high there too.
Just as we all expected earlier this week, it's a great time to be a Kyle Pitts Jr. fantasy owner.
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Stephen Douglas is a senior writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. He has worked in media since 2008 and now casts a wide net with coverage across all sports. Douglas spent more than a decade with The Big Lead and previously wrote for Uproxx and The Sporting News. He has three children, two degrees and one now unverified Twitter account.