Bills second-year TE showing increased confidence at minicamp

Buffalo Bills tight end Dalton Kincaid is looking more sure of himself as he enters his second professional season.

Oct 26, 2023; Orchard Park, New York, USA; Buffalo Bills tight end Dalton Kincaid (86) celebrates scoring a touchdown against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the second quarter at Highmark Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark Konezny-USA TODAY Sports / Mark Konezny-USA TODAY Sports

The Buffalo Bills’ offseason decision to move on from both of its leading pass-catchers from the 2023 campaign signaled… a number of things, among them the team’s confidence in tight end Dalton Kincaid.

The spring omissions of Stefon Diggs and Gabriel Davis leave Kincaid as the team’s leading returning pass-catcher; the 24-year-old is coming off a strong rookie season in which he caught 73 passes for 673 yards and two touchdowns. The departure of both Diggs and Davis implied that the team was interested in promoting Kincaid to a more prominent role, potentially even featuring him as the focal point of their aerial attack.

And Buffalo’s offseason moves at wide receiver did little to dispel this notion. It supplemented its departures in the receiving corps by adding veterans like Curtis Samuel, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, and Mack Hollins and also selected Florida State wideout Keon Coleman with the 33rd overall pick in the 2024 Draft, but these players don’t figure to flawlessly replace the roles vacated by Diggs and Davis. Kincaid already accounted for 91 targets last season (second highest on the team); with the only player above him in last year’s target hierarchy now elsewhere, one could easily envision quarterback Josh Allen looking to his tight end at an even higher clip this season.

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Kincaid is ready for the challenge. While speaking to the media after Wednesday's minicamp practice, veteran pass-catcher Dawson Knox spoke favorably of his tight end brethren, stating that he looks more sure of himself as he works through this year’s camp.

“I think just confidence, really,” Knox said. “He’s proven he can already ball out at this stage . . . Just his confidence has grown so much. He knows where to line up, he knows what defenses are going to do before they do it. He’s building that chemistry with Josh. 

“Last year, I think his head was spinning a little bit this time of the year, but he’s already leaps and bounds above what he was last year, which is saying something because he was one of the most well-polished rookies I’ve ever seen. He’s been doing an incredible job just building on it.”

An even more confident Kincaid is a potentially frightening possibility for opposing defenses; he was already stellar in his rookie campaign, emerging down the stretch as he constructed what was the second-best season ever assembled by a Buffalo tight end. Expect Allen to target the former Utah Ute early and often when the 2024 season kicks off this September.