Michael Pittman Jr. Fantasy Overview

2025 Didn’t Offer Best Colts Send-Off

Fantasy Total Hid Underlying Vulnerability

Pittman finished a nice WR22 in PPR points last season, boosted by playing all 17 games and notching the best receiving-TD rate of his career. He ranked:

• WR32 in PPR points per game
• WR36 in half-PPR points per game
• WR37 in non-PPR points per game

The 8.75% TD rate wasn’t a standout number for the position in general but easily beat Pittman’s 4.44% career rate leading up to last season.

A good Daniel Jones season certainly helped, considering the QBs Pittman had previously dealt with:

• Anthony Richardson
• Joe Flacco
• Gardner Minshew
• Matt Ryan
• Sam Ehlinger
• Nick Foles
• Carson Wentz
• Philip Rivers (the 2020 and 2025 versions)

His PPR scoring average still ranked just fourth-best of his career, though, mostly because his target volume fell.

Where Did the Targets Go?

Here’s Pittman’s targets per game by season:

• 2020: 4.7
• 2021: 7.6
• 2022: 8.8
• 2023: 9.75
• 2024: 6.9
• 2025: 6.5

Last year’s Colts ranked just 18th in pass attempts -- vs. 21st in rushes -- but they’ve actually only ranked higher than that in one of Pittman’s six seasons (2022: ninth).

The veteran wideout trended down in target share the past two years.

Josh Downs beat him in that category in 2024 (adjusted for games missed), and rookie TE Tyler Warren came close last year (19.4%).

Pittman also didn’t help himself. Despite a career-best catch rate (72.1%) and his second-best receiving-success rate (57.7%, measuring how often Pittman gained the “needed” yardage in a given situation), the 28-year-old saw his yards per route fall off vs. the previous two seasons.

The primary issue there was a career-low 3.4 yards after catch per reception, despite a mere 8.4-yard average depth of target.

2026 Sends Him to a New Place

Steelers Like Pittman More Than Trade Price Indicated

Pittman’s meh efficiency and falling target shares probably helped push the Colts to move the final year of his contract for a mere pick swap, a sixth-rounder for a seventh-rounder.

The Steelers showed they were doing more than just shopping some other team’s yard sale, though, by also giving Pittman a two-year extension that should lock him in at least through 2027. And Mike McCarthy likes him.

“He’s perfect, can play all three spots … the X, Z, and the F, you know, move him around,” McCarthy told the Pat McAfee Show at the end of March. “And that’s just the way we like to play football. We like to play concept football, keep moving our guys around, and try to create matchups.”

Pittman did move around the formation with the Colts but has spent just 25.1% of his career pass snaps in the slot, according to Pro Football Focus. Last year marked his high point at 28.9% slot.

How Will He Fit with Metcalf?

Exactly where he aligns in the formation will matter less, however, than how Pittman fares in target share. And his primary competition will be DK Metcalf.

Let’s pull Pittman’s target shares from earlier and look at them next to Metcalf’s since 2020 (Pittman’s first year and Metcalf’s second):

If we throw out Pittman’s rookie year, we get Metcalf leading two of the past five years and Pittman leading the other three -- with only 2023 presenting a big edge.

Of course, that year found Metcalf competing with Tyler Lockett and rookie-year Jaxon Smith-Njigba, while Pittman had rookie Downs and second-year Alec PIerce.

The most important takeaway here, though, is that neither Pittman nor Metcalf heads into 2026 with a streak of proven leadership in earning targets.

Where Pittman might lead Metcalf is the location of his targets. His 8.9-yard career average depth of target sits well short of Metcalf’s 13.2. And that’s including the career-low 11.3-yard aDOT Metcalf saw in his first season with Aaron Rodgers.

The QB’s career-low 6.4-yard aDOT in 2025 -- especially with Metcalf as his most frequent target -- likely points to Rodgers’ late-career limitations more than ex-OC Arthur Smith’s game planning.

Check out the annual intended air yards per target for the seven offenses Smith has piloted to date as OC or HC:

• 2019: 8.6
• 2020: 8.4
• 2021: 7.2
• 2022: 9.7
• 2023: 8.2
• 2024: 7.8
• 2025: 5.9

The change becomes even more noteworthy when you factor in that Rodgers -- even at age 41 (last year) -- was probably the best QB Smith has worked with.

(Sorry, Ryan Tannehill, Marcus Mariota, Desmond Ridder, and late-career Russell Wilson.)

A Pass-Leaning Coach Helps

The swap from Smith and the rest of Mike Tomlin’s staff should be at least neutral for the Pittsburgh offense, and potentially good for its production.

McCarthy has loads of history with Rodgers, having coached him for 13 years in Green Bay. The new HC also brings a pass-favoring history, with a median rank of 9.5 in total pass attempts across his 18 head-coaching seasons (13 for the Packers, five for the Cowboys). Those offenses featured a median rank of 15.5 in rushing attempts.

McCarthy’s offenses have also run at a good pace. Four of his five Dallas units ranked among the league’s top 4 in offensive pace.

He might have trouble matching that with a 42-year-old Rodgers as opposed to prime-aged Dak Prescott, but the swap should at least improve offensive pace after the Steelers ranked just 28th in total plays last year.

The likely increase in play volume for a historically pass-leaning coach should help the target volume for both of Pittsburgh’s top 2 WRs.

Even the Ceiling Looks Like Low-WR2

The best case for Pittman -- short of a Metcalf injury, of course -- would find the import running well ahead of his new corps mate in target share.

Even then it would be difficult to envision Pittman climbing beyond 24%, which would have ranked 14th among WRs last year. His two seasons to date of 24% target share or higher found him ranking 22nd and 18th in PPR points per game in 2022 and 2023, with just 4 TD catches each year.

That looks like the high end for Pittman in 2026.

Pittman Sports Multiple Paths to Meh

If his target share falls short of that range, then Pittman could easily settle into another season of low-WR3 weekly output in PPR -- or lower if Metcalf out-targets him.

Rodgers remains serviceable but isn’t dramatically elevating pass catchers at this point. And Pittman brings his own downside risk via last year’s limited numbers in both aDOT and run after catch. He’ll turn 29 on Oct. 5 and doesn’t profile as the type of high-end WR talent who posts big late-career numbers.

There’s also a chance these Steelers lean a little more toward the run than previous McCarthy teams. The whole league has trended that way in recent years, Pittsburgh sports a solid backfield duo in Jaylen Warren and Rico Dowdle, and the team extended blocking TE Darnell Washington for $10.5 million a year this spring -- after McCarthy arrived.