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49ers TE George Kittle has Hamstring Irritation

The team will reevaluate Kittle on Wednesday.

Grant Cohn

Nov 10, 2024; Tampa, Florida, USA; San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle (85) celebrates after scoring a touchdown against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the fourth quarter at Raymond James Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images
Nov 10, 2024; Tampa, Florida, USA; San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle (85) celebrates after scoring a touchdown against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the fourth quarter at Raymond James Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images / Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images
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Every time George Kittle has a big game, he seems to end up on the injury report the next day.

Kittle was brilliant in the 49ers' 23-20 win over the Buccaneers on Sunday. He had 3 catches for 57 yards and a touchdown. And now he has hamstring irritation according to head coach Kyle Shanahan. The team will reevaluate Kittle on Wednesday.

It doesn't sound like Kittle's hamstring injury is serious. And to his credit, despite landing on the injury report week after week with various ailments, Kittle has missed just one game this season. And he's having arguably the best season of his career.

Through eight games, Kittle has caught a career-high 81.1 percent of his targets, which is incredible. How many receivers are more efficient than he is? He's clearly the best tight end in the NFL and he's making a case that he should be a future Hall of Famer.

But the 49ers have to be careful with him. He's 31-years-old which means his body could break down at any moment. And the 49ers have eight regular season games left. Which means they have to pace him. As much as they would like to throw him 10 passes per game, they really shouldn't. Not until the playoffs start.

For now, the 49ers should continue to use Kittle when they absolutely need him -- in the red zone and when trailing in the fourth quarter. Otherwise, the 49ers should continue to feature younger, more durable receivers.

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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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