Fantasy Upside
Pittman caught 101 balls for 1,275 yards and 11 touchdowns as the primary target for freshman quarterback Kedon Slovis last season. He’s huge at 6-foot-4, 223 lbs, and he ran a 4.52-second 40-yard-dash at the combine, with a 6.96-second three-cone, fourth amongst receivers. That kind of short-area agility should help him use his large frame effectively off the line at the next level, where bigger receivers often struggle if they’re slow-footed. He should slide right into the WR2 starting spot and should benefit from the addition of Philip Rivers, who has always been able to make good use of big-bodied receivers, dating all the way back to Vincent Jackson.
Fantasy Downside
While he timed well at the combine, the agility doesn’t always show up on tape, with physical corners often delaying his routes and effectively re-directing him away from space. Long-term, he has WR1 upside, but also some bust potential. Short-term, he’s likely to end up with the second-most targets among Colts wide receivers, behind T.Y. Hilton. It the Colts sniff the 639 pass attempts they had with Andrew Luck in 2018, that could be good enough for redraft numbers, but if they’re more in line with the 513 they had last season, it’ll be hard for the team to sustain multiple fantasy receivers.
2020 Bottom Line
Pittman has talent and should get some opportunity, making him a valid risk/reward proposition at his 14th-round ADP. It’s not often you can get a starter that late in the draft, and while we don’t fully know what this iteration of the Colts’ offense is going to look like, at such a low cost, he’s very much worth grabbing in case he can make an immediate splash with the snaps he’s likely to get.
