Now that Stefon Diggs is gone, the belief is that the Buffalo Bills passing game will operate through tight end Dalton Kincaid, similar to the way the Kansas City Chiefs go through Travis Kelce.

Obviously, there’s no comparison between Kelce and Kincaid at this stage of their respective careers - one is a three-time Super Bowl champions (so far) and a future first ballot Hall of Famer; the other is a second-year player looking to build on a very nice rookie season in the NFL.

To his credit, Kincaid isn’t beating his chest and proclaiming that yes, he’s going to be the man Josh Allen will most rely on in 2024 as the Bills look to move past the Diggs/Gabe Davis era with a vastly different set of passing game targets.

Sign up for the Bills Blast newsletter Delivered straight to your inbox, additional Bills analysis, insight, stats, quotes and team history from Sal Maiorana

“I feel like we have quite a bit of weapons on offense, so I wouldn’t say that I’m the guy,” Kincaid modestly said. “The offense is just going to go through so many people this year that it’s gonna help everybody out. You know, we’re going to open everybody up and with Josh back there, he’s gonna get everybody the ball. So I think definitely a couple more targets this year, which will be nice, but our room looks good and the weapons we have on offense is pretty cool.”

“Dalton’s been so good in so many ways,” coach Sean McDermott said. “Right away, he’s just a great person with a great disposition. And secondly, his connection with Josh, his understanding of our offense, his understanding of NFL defenses, he’s gotten off to such a great start. And I know he the way he handled this off season and the spring, he didn’t stop, just in terms of his hunger to grow and get better.”

Dalton Kincaid's connection with Josh Allen growing

Kincaid and Allen spent time together away from the Bills’ facility, not only for the get together in Nashville a few weeks ago where they were joined by other receivers and tight ends, but also on a couple golf excursions which Allen said helped bring Kincaid out of his rookie shell.

“He’s opened up quite a bit,” Allen said. “We went on a few golf trips during the offseason and I got to spend some good time with him. He’s one of the good ones.”

For Allen to take that interest was a great feeling.

“It’s awesome,” Kincaid said. “You want to have a great connection with your quarterback and it’s pretty easy to have a connection with Josh because he’s a good guy and it’s like any golf trip he asked me to go on I just kind of say yes and don’t ask any questions after that. It’s been a lot of fun getting to know him a lot more.”

About golf, Kincaid got to play a few courses that, without Allen’s stature, he would never have played, namely Pine Valley in New Jersey, annually ranked as one of the greatest courses in the world.

“Being able to go there and have that experience with him is awesome,” Kincaid. “He’s better than me for sure. His handicap index is a lot lower and I’ve seen him play some really good golf. But I’ve seen him play some bad golf as well.”

Golf season for Kincaid is essentially over, though, and the focus is squarely on football.

“I don’t really tend to look at the outside noise,” Kincaid said. “That’s something we preach a lot on this team. I’m just out there to do my job and catch the ball when it’s thrown my way. Our saying is everybody eats on this offense and everybody is going to eat. So if it’s a game I catch 10 passes, awesome, if it’s a game I catch zero passes it’s awesome as long as we’re winning.”

That’s all fine and dandy, and props to Kincaid who’s about as unassuming and low-ego as an NFL player, particularly a first-round pick, can be. But the bottom line is that the 24-year-old native of Las Vegas needs to place a bet on himself becoming a hugely important cog in this offense.

Suffice it to say, Kincaid can’t have any zero-catch games. And when he does catch the ball, he needs to start biting off bigger chunks of yardage. Counting the postseason Kincaid caught 81 of 101 targets for 777 yards, but of that number, 65 of his catches on 75 targets came on passes either behind the line of scrimmage or within nine yards downfield.

On those 65 receptions he averaged just 7.3 yards with no touchdowns, an indication that he was not used at all in the red zone. He caught 12 passes in the 10-19-yard range (1 TD), and just four with a depth of 20 yards or more (2 TDs).

“Right now we’re kind of in the process of just trying to see what all of our guys can do,” Brady said. “Just seeing Dalton do some things going vertical, we saw that he can do that last year and so something that I hope for all of our guys, you know, that’s a part of the repertoire.”

Buffalo Bills training camp news

Be sure to return to democratandchronicle.com for daily updates throughout the Buffalo Bills training camp. You can also sign up for Bills Blast, Sal Maiorana's newsletter which will follow the Bills action all season long. Here are stories from camp:

Sal Maiorana can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @salmaiorana. To subscribe to Sal's newsletter, Bills Blast, which comes out every Friday during training camp and the preseason, please follow this link: https://profile.democratandchronicle.com/newsletters/bills-blast

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Dalton Kincaid will be a key weapon for Bills in post-Stefon Diggs era