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We all know that the Buffalo Bills will go as far as Josh Allen can take them this upcoming season. That said, even Superman can’t do it alone, and Allen will need some help from the players around him. And while players like James Cook, D.J. Moore, Dion Dawkins, and others will play a crucial role, it is surprisingly tight end Dalton Kincaid who could make or break the 2026 NFL season in Western New York.
The simple answer as to why Kincaid is the one surprising Bills player who could make or break the 2026 NFL season for the Bills is that he was drafted to be an elite weapon for Allen, and he hasn’t been yet. General manager Brandon Beane traded up two spots in the first round of the 2023 NFL Draft to take the Utah tight end.
In that draft, Sam Laporta, Michael Mayer, Luke Musgrave, Luke Schoonmaker, Brenton Strange, Tucker Kraft, and Darnell Washington are tight ends that came off the board in the next two rounds. All of these players have been about as good or better than Kincaid to this point in their careers.
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Still, Kincaid is still young, and if he can become the player Beane thought he would be, it would be huge for the Bills.
Why Dalton Kincaid could be the key to Bills’ season
Kincaid is 26 and has played three seasons in the NFL, but his number of games played is trending in the wrong direction. The first season, he played 16 games, then 13, then 12 in 2025. His catches have also gone down in each season, although he had 123 more yards and three more touchdowns in 2025 than he did in 2024.
And while there are several reasons for this beyond Kincaid missing time, Allen’s passing yards and touchdowns have also decreased in each of the last three seasons.
In recent years, we’ve seen what we’ve seen what an elite pass-catching tight end can do for an offense. Players like Travis Kelce, Trey McBride, George Kittle, Brock Bowers, and the aforementioned Laporta and Kraft, who are too big for defensive backs to cover and too fast for linebackers, change the game for offenses.
Kincaid has this size and skillset, but has yet to become a dominant player. Some of that is due to injury. Kincaid has missed a decent amount of games, but he is also a tough player, so he has played through several injuries as well, limiting his effectiveness. This is not uncommon for TEs like this. Kittle, Kraft, LaPorta, and others have missed significant time in recent seasons due to the fact that they work over the middle of the field and take big hits, and they get tackled low a lot by DBs.
With Kincaid banged up and out, the passing offense has struggled. It’s hard to say how much of that is Kincaid’s injuries vs. Jor Brady’s playcalling vs. Josh Allen’s tendencies, but at least some of that is the tight end.
And ahead of the Bills’ 2026 NFL season, the whole league is utilizing TEs more. The three-tight end set is more in vogue than ever, and Buffalo has a nice triumvirate of Kincaid, Dawson Knox, and Jackson Hawes. However, without Kincaid leading the way as the clear star TE1, that set is less effective.
That’s why Dalton Kincaid is the one surprising Bills player who could make or break the 2026 NFL season. If he becomes a true No. 1 option alongside D.J. Moore and James Cook, the Bills could have the most dangerously complete offense they have ever had in the Josh Allen Era. If Kincaid is just a league-average TE, as he’s been for most of his career, the Bills’ season seems likely to end in heartbreak once again in January.
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