- 2 months ago
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00And I want to give a special salute out there to the 925 on the Boxer and Gerson Work Injury Attorneys text line,
00:06who's already firing.
00:07I love it.
00:08Our show hasn't even started yet.
00:09The Niner bias is incredible.
00:11Kittle, number one in the era because of his blocking.
00:15Great stuff, Willard.
00:17Actually, he is 14th all-time in receiving yards, so it's not because of blocking.
00:23It's because he is by far and away the best tight end, not of the era, of all time when you combine the two aspects of what a tight end does.
00:38Tony Gonzalez, amazing receiver.
00:40Antonio Gates, Travis Kelsey, all of those names.
00:44Phenomenal receivers.
00:46And if you want to make the case that they're better than Kittle, great.
00:48Importance to their team and ask a GM which one they would like because he affects every play and what they do,
00:57at minimum, he's the best of his era.
01:00And I'll only give an acknowledgment.
01:03To me, the other on the list is maybe Rob Gronkowski.
01:06Shannon Sharp, I would put up there as well.
01:08That's a little further back, but I hear you.
01:11Great player.
01:12Of the era, like Gronk, I don't even know if you could put Gronk in Georgia's era.
01:16I know that Gronk played in the early days of George Kittle.
01:19I was doing a deep dive on this topic, and I was looking at how many Pro Bowls were accumulated for players who have more catches than George Kittle.
01:30And the answer is five.
01:31So if you want to just look at Pro Bowls, and I know it's an inexact thing because it's voted on by players and coaches and fans and whatnot,
01:39but there are five guys who have more catches and also more Pro Bowls, but that's a very small list.
01:48It's very thin company when you look at other players who have those accolades and those catches.
01:53And you were talking about it on our show thread earlier about his numbers, and his numbers don't do him justice on just how good he is.
02:01And I don't think, honestly, that he's ever going to get to the numbers that would really be like Gonzalez.
02:07And Jason Witten's another one, I think, who was a very good blocker in his era, and he's got monster numbers.
02:15So if you want to talk about guys who were a two-way threat, Tony Gonzalez was a good blocker.
02:19Kittle's better.
02:20Jason Witten was a very good blocker, and he's got better numbers.
02:24And, you know, Gronk was a very good blocker, and he's got better numbers.
02:28Shannon Sharp was a good blocker, and he's got better numbers.
02:31But to your point, as you start to, like, run down the list of guys who are both really good at receiving tight ends and also good blockers,
02:39you're not going to be able to get to ten tight ends ahead of him, and you may be hard-pressed to get to six or seven.
02:45I mean, I don't know what George Kittle, the future, holds as far as health.
02:49But if we imagine a receiver that's going to be, I don't know, if he has healthy years, he's still capable of 900,000-yard seasons, 1,100-yard seasons, something like that.
03:01I mean, we only saw him for how many snaps was it?
03:05It was about 20 snaps or so in the first, and he had already had four catches and a touchdown.
03:11Like, I don't know if the body's going to hold up, but you mentioned Gronk's numbers.
03:15He's only about 1,600, 1,700, 1,800 yards away from Gronk.
03:20It's not inconceivable that he ends up there or past that.
03:24And, you know, he is headed, in my opinion, for the top ten for receiving yards.
03:30No, he's not going to catch Tony freaking Gonzalez, who's got more than double of what George has.
03:36But George is approaching Vernon Davis, he's approaching Ozzie Newsom, and he's approaching Zach Ertz.
03:44Zach Ertz is still playing, Jimmy Graham, Greg Olsen.
03:47A lot of these players, though, and Jason Witten was a good blocker.
03:50I don't think he was the blocker that George Kittle is.
03:53But a lot of these players, I'll give you Shannon Sharp, Gonzalez, Gates, Jimmy Graham for sure.
04:01Right, he was more of a wide receiver.
04:02Those dudes are receivers in tight end jerseys.
04:05Zach Ertz is a good blocker, but I think the Kittle's better.
04:08And, you know, you'd be hard-pressed.
04:09And even Greg Olsen was a very good blocker, but if you want to run down all these guys on the list,
04:14I would say Shannon Sharp and Gronk and Greg Olsen and Jason Witten.
04:20Like, they'd be in the same sort of sphere as George Kittle.
04:23And I do think that as we look at this Sunday night's game, this is where it becomes mostly really telling for me.
04:31Because you have not been able to run the ball, and he's been out.
04:34You run a lot of outside zone, and that's where the tight end lives.
04:37And you haven't had good blocking wide receivers, because you haven't had a lot of Juwan, and Ricky's been out.
04:43And you haven't had Brandon Ayuk, who's also a good blocking wide receiver.
04:46So, yeah, if Kittle comes back, and he's able to play a full rack of plays.
04:51And I actually heard something earlier today from a different broadcaster that tells me,
04:56oh, he's healthy enough, he's going to play.
04:58Were you listening to different broadcasters?
05:01Of course. Like, I come in here and I grind on all possible content.
05:05You said that as if it's like, you know, something sort of mysterious, like a...
05:10Not at all.
05:11Like a Diggs concussion.
05:13There's a national show, and I won't name drop the show, but there's a national show that is already...
05:19Oh, no!
05:20It's already promoting George Kittle's going to be on that show on Monday.
05:24Oh.
05:25And so it made me think about Steph Curry.
05:27That's interesting.
05:27When Steph Curry came on with Stiney and Goo, and it's like, he had not yet been cleared
05:32to play, and yet he's already going on the media, and so if George Kittle's already making
05:36plans to go on a show on Monday, that tells me that he thinks he's going to be fine on
05:41Sunday.
05:41Well, obviously.
05:42I don't know that you can ever think that you're going to make it through a game fully
05:45healthy.
05:45Something completely new could come up.
05:46But that tells me he goes into the game thinking that he is fully healthy.
05:49I mean, he had people at his locker this week.
05:52That's all you need to know.
05:54Remember, remember, I'll take you back just to week one.
05:58And our guest in less than an hour, David Lombardi, we all sat here.
06:03We had the summit on a Thursday.
06:05That's right.
06:05We got the news that Christian McCaffrey was leaving practice, and then it was 24 hours
06:12of, oh, Schmidt, McCaffrey's going to miss the year.
06:15And then we had Lombardi on in the afternoon, and we're like, what's going on with Christian?
06:20And Lombardi goes, he's playing.
06:22Everything's fine.
06:24Relax.
06:24And we sat there then for the next half hour going, how could he be so cavalier?
06:29How could he be so chill?
06:31But what had just happened?
06:33Christian had had reporters at his locker.
06:35They don't let you do that if you're not a hondo.
06:38They don't let you do it.
06:39They just won't.
06:40And Christian hasn't missed a damn snap since.
06:43Pretty much, right?
06:44Knock on wood.
06:45But you're right.
06:46George, not only did they announce him as no injury designation going into this game,
06:52Kyle Shanahan and others today were asked if there was a snap count.
06:57Hard no is the answer.
06:59This is a full complement of snaps.
07:02They feel like George Kittle.
07:04They have gone through the whole process of ensuring that he is as confident as you can
07:11be that he is super double, ready to go.
07:15And I don't want to use the word expect because I don't think that's fair for any one player.
07:20But I am hopeful that this completely changes the 49er offense because we're going into another
07:29weekend of Mac Jones.
07:31Thankful to have him.
07:32Expect him to play well.
07:34He's been very good.
07:35But for the seventh week in a row, we, the 49er fan base, will scream and yell and focus
07:43about the quarterback.
07:45And the bottom line is, if you want this season to go well, they need to figure out how to run
07:51the stupid football better than they have.
07:55This is a Kyle Shanahan team with Christian McCaffrey on it.
07:59I am totally befuddled at the rushing stats for this football team.
08:05And I got to think that Kyle is up at night right now thinking about it.
08:09And those in the know, from Feliciano to others, have said the magic elixir will be George Kittle.
08:17Well, drumbeat, let's go.
08:20Let's find out.
08:21Because if that happens, then two things.
08:23A, I immediately become way more optimistic again about this season.
08:27And B, I think you can't prop George Kittle up enough.
08:32If his presence alone can get the 49ers averaging four yards a carry, that would be incredible
08:39and saying amazing things about him.
08:41Right now they're dead last in yards per carry.
08:44Think about that.
08:45And it's not even close, Mark.
08:46It's unthinkable.
08:47And I did the deep dive on the history of Shanahan.
08:50And I think I tweeted this out already.
08:52If you don't follow me, you should, at Dan Dibley.
08:54But they've never been below, I think, 21st.
08:58And even at that, that was a horrific year.
09:00When they win, they are top seven.
09:03And when they don't, they're usually middle of the pack.
09:05And right now, they are 32nd in yards per carry.
09:08They're 0.4 yards per carry behind Philadelphia, which Philadelphia is tied for 30th along with New England.
09:15And so, Philadelphia is a team that absolutely dominated everyone last year on the ground.
09:20They're not really running it that effectively either.
09:23And they stopped trying the last two weeks.
09:25Right, because Saquon's not having a great year.
09:28And the other part of it is, Christian McCaffrey is on pace to have a top seven year all-time in total catches if he keeps his pace up.
09:38Yeah.
09:38Does anybody in the NFL, how many people have more catches?
09:42Forget yards, how many people have more catches than Christian McCaffrey?
09:46Does anybody?
09:47Puka and I think Jackson Smith and Jigba?
09:51It might be Jamar Chase after last night.
09:53He caught like 713 balls just last night alone.
09:56Yeah, that was a pretty fun one.
09:57Oh my God.
09:58And I mean, shout out trading within your division.
10:01I think we know why we now never trade within our division, right?
10:06Isn't that the way to do it?
10:07McCaffrey's third behind Jamar and Puka.
10:10Jamar, but Jamar has had his seventh game already.
10:12So it was Puka, then Christian.
10:15And Jackson leads in yardage.
10:17Yes, yes, yeah.
10:18Yeah, those guys have been absolutely incredible.
10:20But yeah, 46 catches for Christian in six games.
10:24Yeah.
10:26It's incredible.
10:27And I put this also out on Twitter.
10:28He's on pace, I think, for 426 touches.
10:31And no player 29 years or older has ever had that many touches in a season.
Be the first to comment