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The 49ers Should Give George Kittle a Contract Extension

Kittle is a future Hall of Fame tight end -- those are hard to find. And they're roughly half the price of top-end wide receivers.

Grant Cohn

Dec 30, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle (85) during the game against the Detroit Lions at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Sergio Estrada-Imagn Images
Dec 30, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle (85) during the game against the Detroit Lions at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Sergio Estrada-Imagn Images / Sergio Estrada-Imagn Images
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The 49ers gave contract extensions to all the wrong players last offseason.

First, they extended Christian McCaffrey, an older running back who's had a ton of injuries in his career. Next, they extended Brandon Aiyuk, a wide receiver who's good but not great. Finally, they extended Trent Williams, a left tackle who will be 37 in July.

Bill Walsh used to say it's better to get rid of a player a year too early rather than a year too later. In retrospect, the 49ers probably should have traded these three players.

Now George Kittle needs an extension. He has just one year and no guaranteed money left on his current deal, and he's coming off arguably the best season of his career. But he's 31 years old. Should the 49ers re-sign him?

Hell yes.

Kittle is a future Hall of Fame tight end -- those are hard to find. And they're roughly half the price of top-end wide receivers, and they last longer than wide receivers who generally flame out by 30. Elite tight ends routinely play into their mid-to-late 30s. Just look at Travis Kelce.

Kittle should retire with the 49ers. And while he's on the team, they never should pay big money for another wide receiver again. Good wide receivers are extremely expensive to sign and also easy to find -- the draft produces a dozen every year. They're replaceable. Kittle is not.

Pay the man his money and do it soon so he can be at OTAs.

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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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