Despite lack of catches, Buffalo Bills TE Dalton Kincaid sees encouraging snap share

“Everybody eats,” indeed. Ten different players caught a pass for the Buffalo Bills during their 34-28 victory over the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday, with no singular one of them accounting for more than four receptions. Tight end and former first-round pick Dalton Kincaid, considered by many to be the likely top target for a revamped passing attack of the Bills, caught just one pass on two targets for 11 yards.

While that stat line might not be impressive or even reasonable relative to expectations, there are encouraging signs in the leading indicators that should be noted by anyone particularly invested in the lagging indicators.

I wrote in July that the first step towards Kincaid being the top pass catcher for the Bills would be him getting the requisite snap count. More snaps correlate with more routes, which correlates with more targets, which correlates with more catches. His 2023 snap share was never likely to get him to the mark necessary to be the leading pass catcher for the team unless he carried a remarkable targets-per-route-run metric and continued his exceptionally high catch rate.

Per Dwain McFarland of Fantasy Life, Kincaid was in on 88% of the Bills’ snaps against Arizona and he had an 83% route participation rate. Those usage metrics are strong indicators of participation not being a barrier for Kincaid to be someone the passing offense can potentially run through.

Dalton Kincaid bombed in the boxscore today, but playing time wasn’t an issue based on early data

88% snaps
83% routes
9% targets

Stay calm, y’all. Those are fantastic underlying numbers for a TE (guessing final %s might be tad lower).

Dawson Knox: 55%, 43%, 9%

“The Bills won; it doesn’t matter” is likely to be a common refrain. But Buffalo threw the ball 23 times against the Cardinals, well below their 2023 average of 33 attempts per game. Their neutral pass rate was 47% per Hayden Winks of Underdog (14th in the league, which would have been 26th in 2023). Game plans are not likely to look like that moving forward for the team based on historical precedent.

The Bills aren’t likely to have a single player receive 150 targets this year as they did when Stefon Diggs was roaming the field in Orchard Park, NY, but they’re likely still going to have someone get 100. The 2015 Carolina Panthers, who this 2024 Bills team has been compared to in their pass catchers, had tight end Greg Olsen receive 124 targets.

Even in the Bills don’t have a singular dominant target hog at pass catcher, somebody has to get the most. And given the Bills’ likely number of pass attempts when the 2024 season has concluded and the volume has normalized, that top target will still get a lot. While the Week 1 counting stats don’t speak to Kincaid being that guy, the usage lurking just beneath the surface speaks to Kincaid still having the opportunities necessary to be that guy in 2024.