SANTA CLARA, Calif. — When (or if?) the 49ers regain some equilibrium after these last few rocky weeks, George Kittle will be one of the main men guiding them there.
He’s not the only leader of this very experienced and accomplished team, of course. Fred Warner, Deebo Samuel and Nick Bosa, among others, are all vital parts of the 49ers’ soul. Brock Purdy is accumulating credibility swiftly. And Trent Williams might be the most respected person in that locker room, but he’s not in there now because he’s holding out for a sweetened contract. Which is one of the disruptions that have shaken this franchise lately.
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The biggest disturbance, no doubt, is the continuing standoff/stare down/pre-breakup situation between the 49ers and Brandon Aiyuk, who has requested a trade and been given permission to talk to other teams. Even if Aiyuk and the 49ers drag themselves back to the negotiating table, there are hurt feelings and hard questions for all sides.
How is the 49ers’ locker room dealing with all this? Are the players wondering if owner Jed York is ready to end this era with a series of discards, which already started with the release of stalwart Arik Armstead in March? Is there discord? Is it business as usual? Who is leading the way?
Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch run the team, but they’re not the voices of this team. I wanted to hear from one of the leaders. Somebody who went through his own rough negotiating process with the 49ers a few years ago. Someone who plays alongside Aiyuk and Williams on the 49ers’ offense.
George, are these contractual crises a sign that this era of the 49ers might be coming to an end?
“I get asked that all the time, like, ‘You guys, you can’t pay everybody; you have a superstar team,'” Kittle told me after practice on Thursday. “Talk about a window closing and all that type of stuff. And I’m just, like, all I know is that currently, right now, we have a really good roster. And I’m just gonna try to attack it every single day with the really good roster that I have.
“I remember being told in like 2021 that, ‘Hey, if we don’t win it this year, the window’s closed.’ And we’ve been to three NFC Championship Games since then. So the window hasn’t closed. John and Kyle and Jed (York) have done a great job about figuring out a way to, whatever metaphorical window, keep that open.”
Kittle said it was a little strange early in camp when Aiyuk, who has been attending camp but not practicing, was absent from the huddle. But several weeks in, with the 49ers getting ready for their exhibition opener on Saturday in Nashville, Tenn., Kittle said everybody is just doing the work and doing their best to ignore the headlines and hullabaloo generated by the Aiyuk situation.
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“Honestly, to me, it’s less weird now than it was at the start,” Kittle said. “Aiyuk’s a phenomenal football player. And with all this stuff that’s happening on the outside, I mean, I have no idea. I see stuff on Instagram occasionally. I don’t really watch any type of ‘SportsCenter’ or (sports-talk) stuff. But it doesn’t really affect me at all.
“Hopefully it pans out the way that’s the best possible way for both Brandon and the 49ers. And whatever happens, happens. Because I have zero control over it and there’s nothing I can do about it. … For Brandon, it’s just, I want what’s best or him. If he requests a trade, I hope that he gets to go somewhere that’s best for him. And I have no bad blood with Brandon.”
Yes, I think Kittle sounded somewhat resigned about this. Or at least his words were filled with an acceptance that things probably won’t be resolved very soon. Kittle emphasized that all negotiations are different — last year, for instance, Bosa was going to hold out until the 49ers caved, period. But it’d be naïve to think that an Aiyuk trade is anything but extremely possible at any moment. And Kittle is not naïve.
Plus, there are young receivers like rookies Ricky Pearsall and Jacob Cowing and young veterans like Jauan Jennings, Ronnie Bell and Danny Gray who theoretically could step into the void.
“I would definitely say that it would be a significant loss,” Kittle said. “(Aiyuk)’s a fantastic wide receiver who does everything that you want. He runs every route tree. He makes huge plays. He gives 100-percent effort in the run game. He leads by example. He brings awesome energy every single day of work. He’s everything you want in a football player. So I love having him as a teammate.
“But the one benefit to him not practicing … is a lot of younger guys get all these reps, and they’re getting important reps with the 1s and with Brock that they wouldn’t be getting otherwise. I’m not going to take probably any rookie over Brandon, I’m not going to do that. But the fact that these young guys get these reps, it’s going to put them in a position to succeed if we can’t figure stuff out with Brandon.”
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The 49ers won’t all of a sudden turn into a terrible team if Aiyuk departs. They’ll still be loaded with Pro Bowl talent, from Purdy, Kittle, Deebo, Warner and Williams (presuming he and the 49ers come to terms) to Christian McCaffrey, Charvarius Ward and Kyle Juszczyk.
But they’ll be less talented than they could’ve been, or should’ve been, if 49ers management hadn’t misplayed the Aiyuk negotiations to this point. It will take strong leadership to get the 49ers through this. I think some of that is already happening. For the 49ers, it’s about standards — and standard bearers. And this will last as long as the talent level is high and the standards are maintained.
Kittle said his generation of captains mostly came of age in the 2021 season, two years after the Super Bowl trip and a year after the COVID-blighted 2020 campaign, when the 49ers also endured a flood of serious injuries, including to Jimmy Garoppolo, Kittle and Bosa. There was some roster shuffling after that horrible campaign, some of the older veterans exited, and the current wave of 49ers leaders stepped forward.
“It was me, Fred, Trent Williams and at that point it’s Hey, Deebo, you’re in Year 3. You’ve got Arik Armstead at that point, too, who was a good leader, and Bosa,” Kittle said. “We were kind of a young group of leaders. But we just tried to practice at a very high level every single day and set a standard that was, if you’re walking into this San Francisco 49ers organization, if you get signed here, if you don’t play at this level, you’re going to stand out like a sore thumb on tape and you’re going to be embarrassed.”
They’re going to need all of that and more from Kittle, Warner & Co. if the 49ers move on from Aiyuk. What’s also understood is that Purdy, entering his second full season as the starting quarterback, is moving into a true leadership role himself. Two offseasons ago, Purdy was the established starter, but that was after only a handful of games as a rookie before he blew out his elbow in the NFC Championship Game. Purdy had to spend the entire 2023 offseason rehabbing after surgery and unsure if he was going to be ready for the 2023 season. This offseason was … normal. Or as normal as it gets for a 24-year-old now firmly set as the 49ers’ QB1.
“He went and got married,” Kittle said of Purdy. “He went on a honeymoon. He was able to calm down a little bit. And when you’re able to do that, it kind of reignites a hunger … you have that itch. It’s like, football season’s coming and I need to get in the best shape of my life and to be my best self. I feel like I saw that from Brock. When he showed up to OTAs, when I saw him, he looked like he was just ready to go. And I show up at training camp, he has the same thing. He’s just hungry to get better every day.
“And when you feel that off of your starting quarterback, it makes you just want to go as well.”
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But the Purdy ascension also complicates the greater 49ers financial squeeze, because everybody in the organization understands that he’s due for a $200-million-plus extension next offseason. That deal probably won’t really hit the salary cap for several more years, but it’ll likely necessitate York committing more than $150 million in guaranteed money. Maybe that’s what’s holding back the 49ers’ talks with Aiyuk, maybe not. But it wouldn’t be the first time that the accumulation of guaranteed money — not the more easily manipulated cap figures — were the true problem issue in an NFL negotiation.
It’s all staring the 49ers’ top veterans in the face. Armstead, a long-time captain, was released after he refused to take a pay cut, just after he went through an injury-limited season and turned 30. Shanahan and Lynch have not denied that they could move on from Samuel after this season, when he’ll be 29. Kittle is entering his eighth NFL season and will turn 31 in October. He only has one more year left on his contract after this season, and the 49ers could get out of it fairly easily. Even though last year was Kittle’s best, healthiest and most productive campaign since 2021 (65 catches, 1,020 yards), you never know when somebody who plays as physically as Kittle might start to wear down.
If the 49ers do some more hardline salary slicing, is it possible they think about targeting Kittle next offseason? “For sure,” Kittle said.
Is this something on his mind?
“It’s not really an issue for me,” Kittle said. “There’s nothing I can do about that except to go out there at every single practice and every single game, show them why they need to keep me around. That’s the only thing I can control. Stay healthy, make a bunch of plays, play at a high level, be a good person and win football games. And if I can just do that, I feel like I’m going to be a Niner for a really long time.
“And if I think about hey, they’ve done this before, you’re at the end of your contract, you’re 30… I don’t really feel 30. … I think I’m having a pretty good training camp. My body feels pretty good. And I’m just gonna continue to play the way that I’ve been playing my entire career. That’s been at a pretty high level.
“I’m very aware that I’m not 23 years old anymore. But I honestly haven’t been able to tell the difference between 27 and 30. I’m just going to keep going until the wheels fall off. And I feel like the way that I take care of my body, the wheels aren’t going to fall off for a while, knock on wood.”
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The 49ers are going to need Kittle — and Warner and others — for as long as they can play like this, and for as long as they can provide counsel for the rest of the roster. But it’ll get harder every time they lose a player like Armstead earlier this year, and maybe Aiyuk in a matter of hours or days. It’ll all get harder. And eventually, even Kittle and Warner will be gone, too. It’s harsh, but every player faces this. Every team faces this. Even the 49ers. Especially the 49ers these days.
(Top photo: Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)
