Why George Kittle HAS to Play Despite Injury Concerns

George Kittle will officially make his return back to the football field for the 49ers after a six week layoff due to injury.

George Kittle will officially make his return back to the football field for the 49ers on Saturday against the Cardinals after a six week layoff due to injury.

"He (Kyle Shanahan) asked me if I wanted to play and I said 'hell yes' and he said 'sounds good'. That was our conversation,” said Kittle on his conversation with Kyle Shanahan regarding his playing status.

Now I know what some of you may be thinking here. Why on earth would the 49ers roll out one of their highest paid players fresh off an injury in a game that has ZERO meaning?

Well, I will tell you exactly why Kittle HAS to play despite injury concerns.

First and foremost, Kittle gets paid to play, not sit on the sidelines. If he is healthy, he will go and there is nothing the 49ers can do to stop him. Kittle is a leader and an influential player in the locker room. If he says he can play, he will. No questions asked. 

Besides, he HAS to "play it out" for my editor Grant Cohn.

His presence on gameday will certainly hurt the 49ers' "tanking" chances as that should really be their primary goal at this point.

But "tanking" is not in the DNA of these players. They could care less about a draft pick or if their game has no meaning. A win is a win and that is enough to feed the egos of the players and coaches. They have pride and cannot set it aside even if it may be beneficial to lose in the grand scheme of things. 

Another way to look at this is that players talk to each other, believe it or not. 

Kittle being healthy and not active on gamedays will likely start to raise some eyebrows around the locker room. At that point, it would definitely signal that the coaches are trying to lose. That could create some drama inside the facility or start to break the trust these players have in Shanahan. 

“If someone’s 100 percent healthy, I can’t look the rest of the team in the eye and tell them they have to play, but George doesn’t,” said Shanahan. “So that’s just part of having a team and part of treating people the right way.”

Besides, just because Kittle is out there does not mean the 49ers will win. It increases their likelihood of winning, but the 49ers are still without a capable starting quarterback. So as long as they are rolling out backups, they are not in any sufficient position to win football games. 

I know Kittle's return doesn't dramatically improve the 49ers' chances at winning, but they still have to play him, even if there are concerns about re-injury. Kittle hasn't really shown to be the most consistently healthy player and that is because of his aggressive nature. The only way for the 49ers to limit the chances of re-injury is to put him on a snap count, and I do not even envision that happening. Given the 49ers' luck, it seems almost certain that Kittle will get injured again.

But they cannot think or see it that way.

This is just the mentality these guys have. Now I am not necessarily agreeing with the decision, but I understand it. And rolling out Kittle makes more sense than rolling out Jimmy Garoppolo because Garoppolo could be trade bait in the offseason. You have to protect that asset that can improve the team in the offseason. At least if Kittle sustains an injury, unless he tears something, he has time to recover. 

There is going to be a lot of mixed emotions and thoughts regarding Kittle's activation against the Cardinals. Regardless, if the best player on the team says he is ready, then it will be so.