Dalton Kincaid has shown thus far in his career that he’s an NFL tight end with great ability. Dalton Kincaid has also shown that, thus far in his career, he’s an NFL tight end with less great availability.
Since entering the NFL, Kincaid has missed games or been limited due to multiple ailments. A PCL injury he sustained during the Bills’ November 10 game against the Indianapolis Colts in 2024 flared up again in 2025. That wasn’t his only injury in 2025 though, as he suffered a hamstring injury in Week
10 against the Miami Dolphins that added a few more missed games to his ledger. Kincaid also suffered a concussion in 2023 and missed another game due to that.
And it’s not as if injury concerns cropped up just after Buffalo’s rookie single-season tight end receptions leader entered the league. He suffered a back injury while at Utah when playing against Colorado that added a note to his pre-draft scouting report.
The injury concerns are highly valid and well-documented, but so is Kincaid’s pass-catching effectiveness when he’s on the field. Ian Hartitz of FantasyLife.com pointed out that among all pass catchers in the NFL in 2025 with 49 or more targets, Dalton Kincaid ranked third in yards per route run.
Being put next to superstar wide receivers named Puka Nacua and Jaxon Smith-Njigba in any metric that evaluates pass-catching efficiency is eyebrow-raising enough, but it’s not the only point in favor of Kincaid’s effectiveness. He was also second among all tight ends with 100 routes or more run in first downs per route run per OTC Fantasy.
This efficiency is driven in part by a departure from Kincaid’s early career sage. Under then-offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey in 2023, Kincaid had an average distance of target (ADoT) of 7.0 per Pro Football Focus, which tied for 14th in the NFL among tight ends with 45 targets or more. This 7.0 mark was even a notable uptick from Kincaid’s ADoT in the first eight games of his career, seven of which saw him with a mark under 5.6. Chipping and releasing to the flats seemed like an off way to utilize a player the Bills invested a first-round pick in during the 2023 NFL Draft.
But 2024 saw Kincaid with more downfield targets, increasing his ADoT notably to 8.9 (tied for 4th in the NFL among TEs with 45 targets or more). And 2025 continued to build on that, with Kincaid’s ADoT climbing again to 9.4 (2nd in the NFL among TEs with 45 targets or more), behind only Chicago Bears’ rookie tight end Colston Loveland. Kincaid also saw his usage out wide in the formation increase to 22.7% — third in the NFL behind Loveland and Kansas City Chiefs’ Hall of Fame-bound tight end Travis Kelce. Kincaid’s wide usage had been 18.5% and 15.7% his first two years in the league. And the Bills clearly know what the have in him, with his targets per route run metric being among the tight end leaders the last two seasons.
So the efficiency seen from Kincaid is based on promising underlying usage metrics. In addition, his hands remain excellent (a 2025 drop percentage of 4.0%) and his yards after catch per reception has topped 6.0 in each of the last two seasons (4th in the NFL in 2024 and 6th in 2025).
Throwing the ball to Kincaid a lot when he’s running routes + throwing the ball to him down the field + him not dropping the ball often + him getting good yards after the reception = an incredibly efficient yards-per-route-run metric that places Kincaid among the NFL leaders not just among tight ends, but among all pass catchers.
As mentioned in my opening above, Kincaid’s dealt with injuries that have limited his availability and he’s been highly effective when he’s been available.
The Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks had a player like that too. This player helped them throughout the playoffs and was just named Super Bowl MVP. Running back Kenneth Walker III was in a timeshare with fellow second-round pick Zach Charbonnet throughout 2025 for a very obvious reason: Walker has a history of getting dinged up. This was the first full season Walker has played since entering the league.
Nobody questioned his ability as a runner and impact player overall. His creativity and patience as a runner, combined with his explosion, created a lot of big plays since the Seahawks took him 41st overall in the 2022 NFL Draft. But the Seahawks platooned him with Charbonnet, himself a gifted runner out of UCLA, in 2025 much in a similar fashion to how the Bills have played Kincaid alongside tight end Dawson Knox over the last few seasons. Charbonnet went down with an ACL tear in the NFC Divisional round against the San Francisco 49ers, and Walker was ready to carry the load en route to a fantastic playoff run and a Pete Rozelle trophy.
And the Seahawks are very glad they had such a talented player when they needed him. In much the same way, a Bills team that (despite a change at head coach) believes itself to still be in contention for a Super Bowl shouldn’t be in a rush to get rid of its most gifted pass catcher due to injury concerns, as real as they may be. It’s not as if the receiving talent on the team as of this writing is overflowing its cup; the Bills are likely to make an investment again in that space after back-to-back free-agent signings Curtis Samuel and Josh Palmer failed to produce any meaningful results, and 2024 second-round pick Keon Coleman disappointed in his second season with the team.
Kincaid and recently extended Khalil Shakir are the pass-catching options that the team likely has the most faith in, and although the injuries to Kincaid are frustrating, president of football operations/general manager Brandon Beane likely has the production versus effectiveness issue front of mind when he advised that he “doesn’t see a reason why (the Bills) wouldn’t pick that up”, referring to Kincaid’s fifth year option.
What else are you gonna do?
…and that’s the way the cookie crumbles. I’m Bruce Nolan with Buffalo Rumblings. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram @BruceExclusive and look for new episodes of “The Bruce Exclusive” every Thursday on the Rumblings Cast Network — see more in my LinkTree!
