Not sure what site you're looking at but ESPN doesn't track drops from what I can see. Drops are very subjective. From site to site you'll see different drop numbers.
Targets and catches aren't. Was the ball thrown at him and did the throw result in a catch.
And I get his QB play was bad last year. There was a lot wrong with that offense. But Drake London caught 60+% of the balls thrown his way for example. So no I don't think you can attribute the drop with Pitts from year one to year two purely on the offense. There are more factors going on than just that. Could be he was playing hurt, could be their offensive coordinator was using him wrong. Could be a multitude of things. The end result was pretty bad. I think Pitts will be better this year. But I also think defenses adjusted to his playing style and now Pitts is going go have to adjust to those defenses.
I didn't realize that would be such a controversial thing to say. I'm not saying the guy is trash. But he also was nowhere close to looking like the fourth overall pick last year or a first rounder in general. We will see on year three.
Don't worry, you're right.
I don't see anybody saying he sucks or can't be better.
But he was really bad last season. As you astutely point out, if it was all on the QB, system, and coaches, you'd see the rest of Atlanta's receivers with the same issues. But you don't. That's simple logic.
The point of all this is if you're drafting a TE that high because he's supposed to be some transcendent talent, you'd want more than what the falcons have gotten from Pitts.
Imagine if Parsons had the rookie year he had, but then came back in his second year with like half a sack, 3 pressures, 2 TFLs and was injured half the year. Some people would still defend him and point to his rookie year as proof of his greatness. But there would be a lot of people who rightly would be questioning how good he really is.
Because when you draft a guy that high and he's touted as the next phenom at his position, he shouldn't be bottoming out like that. Part of what you want is consistency.
We're not talking about counting stats where you can say, well, they run a lot so the opportunities aren't there, or the QB isn't finding him or whatever. He got plenty of targets and he caught less than half. That's a problem.
For comparison's sake, Pitts had by far the lowest catch percentage on the team. The next lowest was 56.5%.
Everyone else was above 60%.
But somehow it was the system/QB/coaches? That doesn't make logical sense.
Maybe Pitts was playing hurt, like really hurt. Maybe it was mental. Maybe he was lazy or disgruntled. Maybe he struggled with double teams. You can say a lot of things to explain it. But you can't say it didn't have anything to do with him. It clearly did.
Hell people were criticizing Lamb for far milder performance issues.