SANTA CLARA, Calif. – No tight end in NFL history has been as productive as the San Francisco 49ers’ George Kittle at catching the ball over the first three years of a career.
A player that skilled as a receiver might be expected to ask, or even demand, for the ball to come his way plenty of times on offense.
But instead of spending his time telling his coaches or quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo how open he is, Kittle has other requests instead.
“Everyone knows what he’s done in the pass game, but he has never once in three years came up to me during a game and said, ‘Hey I need this route.’ Or, ‘Hey we’ve got to do this,'” head coach Kyle Shanahan said. “He’s never once came up to me about a pass play, but he comes up to me about every seven plays about what type of run play we need to do, who we need to allow him to hit, things like that. It makes it very fun to call plays for him.”
For as accomplished a receiver as Kittle may be with his 197 catches and 2,664 receiving yards ranking as the most ever by a tight end through three seasons, it’s his ability as a run blocker that truly sets him apart from some of the other top tight ends in the league who do most of their work in the passing game.