Niners Nation
Your daily San Francisco 49ers news for Sunday, November 17th, 2024
49ers’ George Kittle reveals the ‘wake-up call’ that fuels his All-Pro career (paywall)
“During surgery, it was discovered that Kittle’s right adductor, a group of muscles that span from the pelvic bone to the inner thigh and knee, was completely detached, which wasn’t caught on an MRI during the season.
“The guy who did my surgery in Philadelphia described it like a baseball and stitching around my core was about 75% torn,” Kittle said. “So I was basically playing without a core. And then he found that my adductor was detached. So figuring out ways to play through that was exhilarating. When you wake up in pain, it’s not the most fun to go run outside zone on a Thursday.”
Head coach Kyle Shanahan said Kittle’s toughness is part of why he’s a seven-time team captain, earning the honor every year since his rookie season.
“I used to call George in all the time his rookie year and ask him how his ankle is feeling or something like that,” Shanahan said. “And I couldn’t even have a conversation with him, he’d be like, ‘Yes, sir, it’s perfect. I’m fine. No, I don’t feel anything.’ And then I would watch him limp out of my office.”
Shanahan joked about Kittle’s transformation, noting that as a rookie he wore “boring” socks and “had no wristbands, less tattoos and shorter hair.” Now among the league’s most entertaining and marketable players, Kittle is a corporation whose laundry list of endorsements include deals with Nike, Bud Light, Gatorade, Panda Express, Adobe, Xbox, Levi’s, Panini, Bose and Visa....With that in mind, he established rules with his marketing team. He would earmark two weeks in the offseason for commercials — three days in March and three more in June — and all would be filmed at his offseason home in Nashville, many at his 75-acre property which includes a football field and a three-story gym that’s a converted horse barn.
“They usually come to me and film at my place after I’m done with my four hours of body maintenance or whatever,” Kittle said. “It’s like, ‘No, I’m not going to L.A. to record this. You guys can come here or the deal is just not going to work.’ … All I really care about is winning football games.”
“The surprising decision to waive Tyrel Dodson earlier this week and replace him with rookie Tyrice Knight completes the in-season overhaul of their inside linebacker duo that began last month when they swapped out Jerome Baker for Ernest Jones IV in a trade with the Tennessee Titans.
Pro Bowl cornerback Riq Woolen is healthy after not playing in the first meeting, as is rookie defensive tackle Byron Murphy II, Seattle’s 2024 first-round pick. Rotational defensive lineman Roy Robertson-Harris had yet to be acquired from the Jacksonville Jaguars by that first meeting with the 49ers...
