Brandon Beane was quick to pump the brakes.
It was April 27, 2023 and Beane just traded up two spots to select tight end Dalton Kincaid in the first round of the draft. Not only that, but the Buffalo Bills had signed Dawson Knox, a tight end popular with the fans and teammates, to a $52 million extension 10 months earlier.
Kincaid was a prototypical tight end, Beane assured. He was like a big receiver in the mold of Chiefs future Hall of Famer Travis Kelce and that’s how he was to be used by the Bills.
Early returns on Kincaid were positive. Injuries to Kincaid and Knox forced the Bills to scuttle the two-tight end offense they planned all offseason to use, but Kincaid had one of the best rookie seasons for a tight end in NFL history, setting a franchise single-season record for receptions by a tight end (73).
With Stefon Diggs’ departure, Kincaid was the favorite to become Buffalo’s No. 1 receiving target. But a collarbone and knee injuries forced Kincaid to miss four games and his production was nearly trimmed in half.
The final image of Kincaid’s 2024 season was the ball squirting through his arms on a diving attempt to snag a fourth-down pass from Josh Allen. Since then Beane has spent his offseason fielding questions about whether Kincaid regressed or if he was going to develop into one of the game’s premier tight ends.
“I don’t really understand that,” Beane said at the NFL scouting combine. “Dalton’s a heck of a player. Dalton fought through a tough year, injury-wise, could have easily shut it down. Had plenty of reasons to shut it down. … Teams would shut guys down, put them on IR, and we had lots of discussions. But Dalton wanted to play, wanted to fight through it.”
Both Beane and coach Sean McDermott mentioned after the season that Kincaid needed to increase his strength to withstand the punishment that comes with playing a full season in the NFL. While McDermott didn’t say if Kincaid met the team’s expectations during the offseason last year, but noted increasing his strength was also a conversation after 2023.
Kincaid missed the NFL scouting combine due to back surgery after his final season at Utah. He missed a game as a rookie with a concussion and then played through shoulder and finger ailments late in the season.
After leaving a Week 10 game against the Colts with a knee injury and missing the next three contests, something Kincaid refused to elaborate on during the season, he didn’t look quite himself upon return. And it wasn’t revealed until after the season that he was playing through a PCL injury.
Kincaid averaged 5.9 targets per game before his PCL injury, but 4.2 afterwards. He had just three catches for 24 yards in the final two playoff games.
“He is as serious about football and his improvement as anybody on our football team,” McDermott said at the NFL scouting combine. “… He’s not a big, tight end, but he plays like a big tight end, and within that, he’s been hurt a little bit in year one and then again in year two. So the most important thing that we need to do, and we need to help him with, and he needs to do as well, and taking the lead on this is getting stronger and more durable for us to be out there even more. So I don’t question his ability.”
Kincaid’s ability may be proven at this point, but his usage at times is befuddling. After having 30 catches at least 10 yards downfield in his final two college seasons, Kincaid has 25 in two seasons with the Bills.
Roughly 70% of his 137 career targets have come less than 10 yards beyond the line of scrimmage, including 50 of 84 last season. While the number of slip screens to Kincaid bordered on the absurd, Kincaid did make a jump on targets downfield.
Despite 20 fewer targets, Kincaid went from 26 targets beyond 10 yards to 31 last season. His average depth per target also increased from 6 to 7.5, which ranked 11th among tight ends in 2024.
Problem is, Kincaid only caught eight of those targets. Kincaid caught just 44 of his 75 targets during the regular season, ranking 34th among NFL tight ends with a 58.7% catch rate, a statistic he finished third in as a rookie (80.2).
“Dalton is a big part of our plans going forward,” Beane said. “… He’s been a big part of our success. People game plan for him. He’s part of the everybody eats, so good chance for him to get away, get his body healed up, and we’ll be excited to get him back in the spring.”
Kincaid usurped Knox as the team’s No. 1 tight end in totality last season. Despite playing three more games, Knox still played fewer than 150 snaps more than Kincaid.
The Bills led the league in using a sixth offensive lineman as a tight end 14.3% of the time. But they ranked 28th in 12 personnel (one running back and two traditional tight ends), according to SumerSports.com.
The ‘Everybody Eats’ philosophy hasn’t fed Knox the last two seasons. Even though he played four more games in 2024, he was only able to match his 2023 total of 22 receptions. Knox yards jumped from 186 to 311, but he has three touchdowns combined over the last two seasons, compared to six in 2022.
But the Bills still value Knox, who quietly signed a re-worked three-year, $29.5 million extension this year. Knox is owed $7.728 million this season and $14.568 in 2025, before the Bills can move on without paying him $17.068 million in 2026, according to Spotrac.com.
“You need as many guys like Dawson Knox as you can to win a championship,” Beane said. “Those are the types of players, even if their stats aren’t what Kelce’s and some of these guys are. He does so much for our team that you guys don’t even see the man he is, the leader he is.”