Dalton Kincaid, the Buffalo Bills’ first-round draft selection of the 2023 NFL Draft, was seen as arguably the top-rated tight end of the class and has impressed fans and the coaching staff.
Kincaid was seen as a top-15 draft selection before his back injury in late November; as a result, he did not participate in any physical assessments at the combine in February but met with teams for interviews. Therefore, come April, for the draft, due to the injury mentioned above and a run of late first-round wide receivers, he began to slip down the draft until the Buffalo Bills traded up two spots to jump ahead of the Dallas Cowboys to select him at pick 25.
Thus far, at Buffalo Bills Training Camp at St. John Fisher University in Rochester, New York, Kincaid has not dropped many passes, and his hips have looked extraordinarily fluidic. He will benefit from playing against smaller safeties and linebackers in the league, as he stands just under 6-foot-4 inches tall and weighs 246 pounds; this has the potential to create severe mismatches on the field. The team has had him lined up in the slot, creating many rub routes with the combination of wide receivers Stefon Diggs and Gabriel Davis, not to mention emerging second-year and now starting running back James Cook lining up to catch the ball.
Kincaid is earning praise from fellow Bills Tight End Dawson Knox after Knox said, “His personality is just awesome. You know he fits right in with our culture, with our room.” This team’s culture has taken a 180 after 2017 after the hiring of coach Sean McDermott, where the team endured a seventeen-year playoff drought that seemed like it would never end. Another big fan of Kincaid on this team is starting Quarterback Josh Allen, where Allen would say the following: “He is fun to throw to, I will tell you that,” “He has got a good body language. And he made some plays out there, and we’re gonna continue to grow on that.”
In the last few years, the Buffalo Bills have received a bit of flack for coddling rookies by limiting their reps in practices and bringing them slowly along for their development; however, it seems with Kincaid, they are throwing him in the deep end of the pool, hoping that he can swim, and so far it seems like he is holding his own.