Albert Breer on Kyle Pitts Signing His Tag, Kirk Cousins as a Mentor, Jimmy Garoppolo's Market

It makes sense for him because it's a good deal for him.

All right.

Welcome in to the Bre Report for April 10th.

We have less than two weeks to go until the 2026 NFL draft, and starting next week, we are going to dive all the way in on the draft.

But to wrap up this week, we do have a few news items to take care of, to wrap up the week, and we're going to start with Kyle Pitts signing his franchise tender in Atlanta, the one-year $15.

05 million dollar tender.

To play with the Falcons this year.

And to me, this is a symbol, this is a signal of a franchise tag actually working for a player.

Oftentimes over the course of the last few decades, we have heard that the franchise tag restricts players and there's no question that that's true.

Um, it prevents them from going out and seeing what their true worth is in the free agent market.

That isn't good.

But, it isn't bad for a player in every case.

And I think Kyle Pitts is one case where you could look at it and say, this could be a really good thing for him.

And I'm gonna explain why based on the numbers.

Now, first of all, Kyle Pitts, of course, had a breakout year last year, um, after suffering a really serious injury a few years ago, 2023, 2024 were affected by his physical condition.

Um, in both of those years, he was under 55 catches and 700 yards.

He had a total of 7 touchdowns over those two years.

Last year, he comes back, 88 catches, 928 yards, 5 touchdowns, establishes himself the way he had as a rookie , as a guy to watch going forward, and that would make sense for a guy who was drafted as high as any tight end has been drafted in his generation.

So now, you look at where the Falcons are at and where Kyle Pitts is at.

The Falcons, of course, would look at this and say , well, we need a little more evidence.

They weren't there with him last year, of course, it was Raheem Morris and Zach Robinson and that staff working with him.

Now you've got Kevin Stefansky, you've got Tommy Reese coming in on the coaching staff, Ian Cunningham coming in as the general manager, Matt Ryan, of course, is the president of football operations.

Matt Ryan played with Kyle Pitts when Kyle Pitts was a rookie.

Um, so, without having had the full context of the last few years, it would make sense that they would want to put the tag on him and say like, let's see it for another year.

As for Kyle Pitts himself, I don't know that he was gonna go out and get a monster deal from anybody on the market based on what some of the other tight ends got.

So, that's why he signs the tender now instead of waiting until the middle of July and sitting out everything in the spring.

It makes sense for him because it's a good deal for him.

At $15.

05 million that's probably higher than the average per year he was gonna get somewhere else if he had been a free agent.

And it also gives him leverage in negotiating a long-term deal if he and the Falcons decide to do that between now and the middle of July when the deadline to do a long-term deal hits.

Generally, the way that you look at these situations is you're gonna take the equivalent of two franchise tags, so that's this year's tag and next year's tag, which is 120% of this year's tag.

You add them together, you divide them by 2, you got the average per year.

You take the sum of those two numbers, and you've got the guarantee.

And so, the sum of those two numbers is $33.

1 million.

The average would be right in the $17 million dollar range.

That would make him the second-highest paid or the third-highest-paid tight end behind Georgia.

Kittle, who is one of the great tight ends of his era and potentially a future Hall of Famer, and Trey McBride, who had a historic season at the position last year and is almost undisputably the best tight end in the game going in 2026.

So, let's just like look at that leverage point.

What would a long-term deal look like if they were gonna negotiate one?

I drew it up as a 4-year, $68 million deal with $35 million guaranteed.

Based on everything that Kyle Pitts has been through, I think he might agree to something like that.

I think a deal like that could make sense for him.

So, you either have that or you play for one year on the franchise tag, and then you're talking about having a much higher franchise tag number next year, which not only gives you more money for 2027, but it also gives you more leverage in negotiating a long-term deal.

I'd say overall, there's no bad result here for Kyle Pitts.

Either he plays in the $15 million tag or he gets the long-term deal.

If he plays in the $15 million tag, he either has a ton of leverage going into 2027 in a negotiation off a franchise tag, or, um, or he's got the long-term, the big second deal that every player looks for coming into the league.

Either way, I think the franchise tag actually winds up being a good thing functionally for Kyle Pitts.

All right, our second topic for today, Kirk Cousins in the building in Vegas, and I think he's gonna be an ideal mentor for Fernando Mendoza.

The first thing you want to look at here is to go and look at the motivation that Kirk Cousins had for signing in Vegas and not waiting for a team like Pittsburgh potentially to have something fall through and create a starting opportunity for him elsewhere.

The first piece, of course, is the money, and the Raiders creatively were able to find a way to get him an extra $10 million for 2026.

And the creativity in doing that and still being in a position to stick the The, the Falcons with the offset was obviously a piece of the puzzle here.

The other piece of the puzzle to me is the presence of Clint Kubiak there.

Now, Clint Kubiak and Kirk Cousins were together for 3 years in Minnesota.

22 of those 3 years, Clint was Kirk's quarterbacks coach.

The final year, the 3rd year that they were together there, Clint was his offensive coordinator.

So, Kirk gets To go to a place where he's got a foundation in what they're gonna be calling, what they're gonna be building, how they're going to make it look, and what it's going to look like for the quarterback.

So, that helps Kirk position himself to play well in 2026, which will be his 15th NFL season.

It also positions him As a leader and mentor for Fernando Mendoza.

So, there is only so much that a coaching staff and Clint Kubiak and Andrew Ginoco, their offensive coordinator, and Mike Sullivan, their quarterbacks coach, they're all gonna be part of this.

But there's only so much coaches can do to teach you a system.

Then there's the ability for a player to show you what the system is through his eyes.

What does it look like through a player's eyes?

And so Kirk Cousins essentially will be able to give Fernando Mendoza that, maybe first as the guy who's out there taking the snaps, and then later on when Fernando Mendoza is playing as a guy on the sideline that he can counsel with.

So, I think it makes all the sense in the world from that perspective that Kirk Cousins would be the guy that you would target and they circled him months ago as a guy they would target and bring in.

Again, you give points to the Raiders for being creative and adding the monetary.

Uh, incentive for him to come off the market now and not give the Steelers a chance to look at it should the Aaron Rodgers thing not happen, which I think it will, but should it not happen, um, the Steelers obviously would be a, a, an appealing, um, destination.

And so I think that sets up for Kirk Cousins to have a, a good year in 2026, to play well when he's out there.

The history tells us that at some point, whether it's week one, week five, week 10, whatever, that Fernando Mendoza is gonna get in there and get reps.

Uh, but it positions Fernando Mendoza to play well whenever he gets in there and have a resource available to him.

That the coaching staff itself alone cannot give them.

So I love the signing of Kirk Cousins functionally for Vegas, and the fact that he's already in the building, you know, makes me feel even better about it because he's now gonna have a month head start on Fernando Mendoza and he's gonna be able to help Mendoza with what he missed over the beginning of the offseason program.

Finally, topic number 3, Jimmy Garoppolo is still out there as a free agent.

My sense is that Jimmy Garoppolo is content to go be a backup somewhere in 2026 and maybe it winds up being back with the Rams.

He had a really good experience in Los Angeles the last couple of years.

The Rams were actually comfortable with the idea of him starting last year.

Had the Matthew Stafford trade happened, obviously, the trade doesn't happen.

Um, and so, you know, I think the idea of going back there would appeal to him if the Rams decide, again, they've got Matthew Stafford, Stetson Bennett, that Um, that, that , that, that, that he would make sense to bring back, um, as both, you know, a guy in the quarterback room that can relate with Matthew Stafford, that can help Matthew Stafford, um, you know, and also a depth piece.

Um, and I think for Garoppolo, it makes sense to go back there because you, you, you, you look at the situation.

If Matthew Stafford winds up walking away in a year or two, Garoppolo would be set up to be the bridge guy.

But I, I don't think Garoppolo is somebody that's gonna be chasing all over the country, some starting job somewhere.

I think if, if, if that were where he was at, like I think he probably would have gone to Arizona.

That ship has now sailed with Gardner Minho now there to compete with Jacoby Brissett.

Um, and so, like I, I, I think you're gonna see Jimmy Garoppolo signed somewhere as a backup for 2026.

Appreciate you guys coming out.

As always, you can leave your comments down below here on the YouTube page or you can get to me on my social media.

That's at Albert Breer on Twitter, at Albert Arbreer on Facebook, at Albert_Breer on Instagram.

And next week, we are going to dive in again all the way in to draft talk.

Can't wait to get to that.

We'll see you guys then.