Kittle reveals the moment he realized 49ers were his NFL home originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Nothing is promised in the NFL.
That said, the 49ers’ George Kittle knows how lucky he is to have spent so many seasons with one team in the Bay, but he also knows he’s earned it. Because old homes are so hard to find around the league, Kittle recently told teammate Deebo Samuel when he realized the 49ers were his.
“My sophomore year I had over 1,300 yards and a bunch of touchdowns, and I thought, ‘Oh, if I just play like that again, they’re going to reward me for playing the game the right way,’” Kittle said on Samuel’s latest podcast ‘Cleats & Convos’ “Because you can do all these things off the field, whatever it is, but everyone is watching the tape. That’s the only thing they respect.
“And if you have good tape and people respect you, someone is going to pay you a lot of money for it.”
The 49ers selected Kittle in the fifth round (No. 146 overall) of the 2017 NFL Draft, and he went on to catch 43 passes for 515 yards and two touchdowns during his rookie season. His sophomore campaign in 2018 was his breakthrough, as he hauled in 88 receptions for 1,377 yards and five touchdowns.
After Kittle put together a nearly identical season in 2019, the 49ers rewarded him during the offseason with a lucrative five-year, $75 million contract extension in August 2020, making him the highest-paid tight end in NFL history at the time.
You could definitely say he was home.
“I’m happy to be here in SF,” Kittle concluded.
Despite the uncertainty at quarterback during his first five and a half NFL seasons, Kittle now has some consistency under center in Brock Purdy, and the two have had a lot of success together. The All-Pro tight end recorded his third 1,000-yard season last year in Purdy’s first full season as the 49ers’ starting quarterback, and he leads the 49ers in touchdowns this season.
While it remains to be seen what Kittle’s next contract will be — he will become a free agent after the 2025 season — there’s no denying that San Francisco is where People’s Tight End should be.
Download and follow the 49ers Talk Podcast
