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George Kittle Explains Why His Stats are Down

I asked Kittle about this strange development Friday in the 49ers locker room.

Grant Cohn

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SANTA CLARA -- George Kittle almost always plays well in prime time, which bodes well for the 49ers, who play the Vikings on Monday Night Football this week.

But in two of his past three games, he has caught just one pass. That's strange for such a dominant tight end.

I asked Kittle about this strange development Friday in the 49ers locker room.

ME: You've had one catch in two of your past three games. Is that a function of the game plan? Is that Brock Purdy freezing you out?

KITTLE: "One hundred percent Brock freezing me out. That's a good one. You know, game plan - we've gone against a lot of really good defensive lines, and we're trying to do our best to not let something happen like T.J. Watt getting three sacks against us. If my catches diminish to help the team win, I don't really care. My goal is to win a Super Bowl. Accolades come after that. It is what it is. I'm going to be out there, I'm going to be chipping, blocking, catching balls, scoring touchdowns -- whatever they ask me to do, I'm going to do it. Would I prefer to have five targets over one target? Sure. Any tight end would. But if that's not in the game plan, then it's not in the game plan, and it's alright."

MY TAKE: Kittle is sacrificing his numbers to stay in and block and help 49ers right tackle Colton McKivitz, who gave up three sacks to T.J. Watt back in Week 1. When it's a nationally televised game, the 49ers throw Kittle the ball and make him feel like a star. But other weeks, they make him do the dirty work, and he enjoys it.

Respect.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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