George Kittle needs to be more involved in 49ers' passing game | Yahoo Fantasy Football Forecast
Yahoo Sports' Matt Harmon and Sharp Football Analysis' Rich Hribar explain why San Francisco needs to utilize more of George Kittle in its offense moving forward.
Video Transcript
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RICH HRIBAR: Where is the revitalization and the creativity for George Kittle? He's too good of a player to be used the way he is. And he's running a ton of routes, because typically the pushback that we always get with George is, like, well, he's such a good blocker, it makes him worse for fantasy. The dude, since he came back from injury, he's running the most pass routes per drop back in the NFL at his position. Like, he's running a ton of routes. It's either he's not first read on these, like the specific plays aren't for him.
He has gotten a lot of big target bumps in the past when Deebo's been out, but obviously, those are different 49er teams. That didn't have Christian McCaffrey and they didn't have Brock Purdy. But I would say that this is a great opportunity for Kyle to get back in his bag and find some things that work for George Kittle because the Seahawks have been absolutely horrible against tight ends all year, so maybe a Kittle game? We got to coax it, though.
MATT HARMON: Yeah, we got to coax a little bit, but I think that-- but that's good stuff because I could, obviously, see him getting the bump with Deebo. And I think the thing with the 49ers and why Kittle is-- I think you're right there to say the problem is that he's probably not the first read very often because they design so many passing plays to Christian McCaffrey and to Deebo Samuel. Like, those guys are-- Deebo is still like a bit of a create-a-touch player. And then if you're going to have a first-read guy, it's going to be Aiyuk at wide receiver because he's-- I mean, he's been unbelievable this year.
He's just been such a good player. I think that's really suffered with Kittle a little bit. But as much as I love Aiyuk and as much as I appreciate what Samuel and McCaffrey bring to the table, it's like you can't really just have George Kittle be like kind of an afterthought, you know? And I've had about enough with the designed plays to like when clearly, like, Ray-Ray McCloud is the first read or, like, Jauan Jennings or old Ross Dwelley a couple of times this year. So like, I think you can get Kittle a little more involved. This does feel like a good spot. So if you're looking at, like, single game DFS or prop bets, stuff like that, maybe, I don't know, if you can coax that Kittle game out of here, I like that call a lot.