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Willard and Dibs react to what ESPN's Nick Wagoner wrote about George Kittle's offseason recovery from his Achilles tear. Do we not appreciate Kittle enough?
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00:00This hasn't been talked about yet on the station today, and it really caught my attention.
00:04Did y'all catch Nick Wagner of ESPN's feature piece on George Kittle?
00:09Did you read that?
00:10Oh, yeah.
00:11Okay, I'm going to encourage everybody to go check it out,
00:16because it is a step-by-step go-through of the offseason.
00:22And it really caught my attention, and I found it inspiring.
00:28George Kittle, I don't know kind of how to say this in a way that you don't already know.
00:34You know he's a wild man.
00:35You know he is a beacon of positivity.
00:38You know he is a future Hall of Fame tight end.
00:41You know, you know, you know.
00:43Just positive, positive, positive.
00:45He's one of those types of people in sports here in the Bay.
00:50Somehow, though, I feel like because it's George,
00:54and because he's kind of one of these Superman characters,
00:57we have sort of undervalued and under-discussed something that just happened.
01:04He tore his Achilles in January.
01:07And all summer long, we were like, yeah, he's going to miss half the season.
01:13And then we were like, well, he thinks that he could be ready to go early,
01:17so maybe they just put him on the pup, and he just misses the first four.
01:23And then we got through August, and we had a back-and-forth discussion after,
01:27would he even go to Australia?
01:29And how much would it make sense to actually lean on him if he were to play?
01:36How many plays does he get?
01:38And then he just started doing it, and then we all immediately went back to our lives.
01:44Oh, yeah, George Kittle's really good.
01:46Do we have a full appreciation for what has just taken place here?
01:52And by the way, the answer's no, especially once you read the article,
01:58and get a sense of what he did on a daily basis in order to arrive at this moment.
02:06We'll describe some of it to you,
02:08because I don't want to assume that you've all been reading ESPN today.
02:12But it is mind-blowing, mind-blowing.
02:16And apparently he sat there with Dr. Neil Eletrush very early in the process,
02:21and one of his first questions after surgery was,
02:24can I still go on my golf trip to Bandon Dunes with Kyle Juszczyk
02:29and a bunch of my other best friends in about five weeks?
02:32In about five weeks after the surgery.
02:34And the answer was, if you nail every day, yeah, you can.
02:39And then he did.
02:41I just, I want to talk about this a little bit,
02:43because I don't believe that we have actually given the proper amazement
02:49for what has just taken place for 49er football.
02:52And we all do, like, the boilerplate when there's an injury,
02:55and I'm the first one to do this because I fancy myself a radio doctor.
02:59And it's like, oh, the Achilles, that'll be nine to 12 months if all goes well.
03:02And that Bandon trip was actually eight weeks after surgery.
03:06Sorry, it's fine.
03:08It still is remarkable to think that in two months he could be out there,
03:11like, walking and golfing and doing all the things.
03:14And I heard George Kittle actually talk earlier this week about a July 4th workout
03:19with Brock Purdy where he was able to run and cut and actually run patterns at about 80%.
03:24And so you think about that being five months after the Achilles surgery,
03:28and, you know, you got to July and you figured that if I can do this
03:32and maybe I can be ready for game one, it is truly remarkable.
03:35And I don't know if this is going to, like, go ahead and blow up
03:38what we normally think about the timeline for these returns
03:41because I don't know if this was a high Achilles or a low Achilles
03:44or what the actual repair was, but it's remarkable.
03:47They referred to him as the absolute perfect patient, numero uno.
03:54And obviously he had the best doctors in the world and all of this,
03:57but basically to give you sort of the short CliffsNotes version,
04:03he would absolutely dive in to anything that they suggested and then double it and triple it
04:11and the patience he would show.
04:13It is, in other words, all day long, just putting marbles in your toes and bending them
04:21and then sitting there and doing that for two hours and then take a little break
04:27and then do it again and do it again tomorrow, do it again the day after that.
04:31And so some of this, when you read it, is not just, wow, this is an elite athlete.
04:38It was like the mental and emotional patience and fortitude that needed to go into what he did this offseason
04:47is otherworldly because, and now I think is the perfect time for this thing to come out
04:54and for us to have this conversation because he didn't just make it back.
04:58I read in this article that doctors say that 27% of players, and this was a study that was
05:06done,
05:0727% of players that suffer an Achilles injury ever return to normal, like return to themselves.
05:14George Kittle isn't just back.
05:16He looks exactly like George Kittle.
05:20The Achilles was torn in January.
05:22It's not even October yet.
05:24Right.
05:25And he is leading the 49ers in receiving.
05:29He is, and I mean, you look at the touchdown, he probably shouldn't have scored, but he did anyway.
05:34And, you know, Kittle's like, they should tell me, like, if I'm not supposed to score
05:37because he got the ball and he went in and got touchdown number two.
05:41And I'm reading about what Dr. Ella Trash said about the various nature of the repair
05:47where they didn't have to drill into the heel.
05:50So it was a higher up Achilles.
05:52So the bottom of the Achilles was still intact as far as like it being attached to the heel.
05:58So if you have to attach it up high to the calf or, you know, to the lower leg bone,
06:04that becomes less invasive, but still to come back in eight weeks in golf and to come back
06:09in five months and be out there running routes and to come back in basically eight months
06:14and be out there, you know, making catches and scoring touchdowns.
06:18It's amazing.
06:19You're a radio doctor.
06:20You know what BFR is?
06:23BFR.
06:23BFR.
06:26So this is what it cites.
06:29It was Kittle's secret weapon, the BFR.
06:34The BFR, as Nick Wagner writes, is essentially a tourniquet that Kittle would strap to his thigh
06:41to cut off the blood flow into the muscles he was working.
06:46It tricks the brain into thinking it's taking on heavier loads than it actually is.
06:53And according to Kittle, it's a better method to work to failure when you can't bear weight
06:59on the leg.
07:01In Achilles recovery, the BFR is a suggested tool to use a couple times a week.
07:07Kittle used it twice a day.
07:10Wow.
07:11So basically you're tricking your muscles into the fact that, you know, there's no blood
07:15coming down to you.
07:16And so you're working on the muscles and the muscles have to strain and do everything
07:20they can to repair.
07:21And then you eventually release the tourniquet and then the blood comes in and probably speeds
07:25up the recovery.
07:26The doctor said, quote, it's really hard.
07:28It makes the easiest thing really challenging.
07:31It enabled us to push him hard from a muscular standpoint without putting a ton of stress
07:36on the Achilles that he was healing him really pushing through some of that boring
07:41stuff.
07:42And pushing that calf to fatigue is why he was able to get back so fast.
07:49What this man went like, OK, forget all the like word for word.
07:53What this man did in the offseason is absolutely diabolical.
08:00It's mind blowing.
08:02Read word for word what this man did in the offseason to play football and not just play,
08:09but to play his level of football.
08:12And it's a humongous piece, obviously, to what the 49ers have been able to do to start
08:17this year.
08:18So he basically gets the injury.
08:20He gets the surgery and he asked the doctor, like, what do I do to be ready for golf in
08:24eight weeks?
08:24And they say, well, you're going to have to be aggressive with your rehab.
08:27And so he goes out there and you mentioned the BFR and I had not heard of that before,
08:31but all the things he did rehab wise were not only two times the norm, but four times the
08:37norm.
08:37And so he's out there rehabbing at an insane rate.
08:40And I do think that he was helped by the fact that it was a higher Achilles.
08:44So you didn't have this like I think with the lower Achilles, it's usually like a two
08:48or three months of like you do nothing like you wear the boot and you scoot around.
08:53And I know Kittle had talked to already about like, you know, the early days where you wake
08:57up at 3 a.m. like we all do.
08:59And it's like you have to go to the bathroom.
09:00And so Kittle's got to like roll over, find the scooter and scoot, scoot, scoot to the
09:05bathroom and then like use the bathroom and then scoot, scoot, scoot back.
09:09And that's like tougher, like an elite athlete to have that level of like incapacitation.
09:14No doubt.
09:15Sensation.
09:16That is a buck.
09:18And I like I think also there's something about George.
09:23He you know, this is a guy who won the Super Bowl.
09:25You know, the fumble is on the ground behind him and he's like, yeah, your name's George.
09:30My name's my favorite.
09:31He's kind of he's a goof.
09:33So you don't realize the intensity.
09:37You don't realize what's happening behind the scenes, the laser focus, the absolute and total
09:44motivation to be one of the absolute best ever to do it at his position.
09:51And so I really, really appreciated this work and this this read and and then also by extension
10:00this player and this this man who we have gotten to enjoy.
10:04Boy, there's a few of them in the Bay right now who just have this sparkling career long.
10:10You've never done anything to tick us off.
10:14You've never done anything to make us question you type of a relationship.
10:20Steph Curry, George Kittle.
10:21I think Fred Warner's in that boat.
10:24There are probably others, but I it's just it's incredible.
10:28And it got me to thinking, I think that this story and the length of time it took,
10:34has been underappreciated and and and that for obvious reasons, because the season started
10:40and we're just like, wait, all right, make nachos.
10:43He looks great, but this has been underappreciated.
10:46And so I thought to myself, what else?
10:48What else is underappreciated in Bay Area sports?
10:53And I thought we could have an interesting conversation about that.
10:57And you're invited.
10:59Eight at eight, nine, five, seven, nine, five, 70.
11:02Dibs and I both have a list of three things, but I think this conversation could go anywhere.
11:06And I'm sort of curious to see where it goes.
11:08So eight at eight, nine, five, seven, nine, five, 70.
11:12We take your calls right now.
11:14What do you feel is underappreciated in Bay Area sports?
11:18I love that.
11:18And I mean, you could look at this in so many different ways.
11:21And you can actually say Steph Curry, because as much as he is appreciated, I don't think
11:26that most people and certainly us in our business.
11:29And I've talked to you about this before, how I would love for there to be an oral history
11:33of how 95 seven, the game got the Warriors, because when we got the Warriors, our station
11:39went from to, yeah, now we dominate.
11:43And so like that whole piece of it.
11:45So for me, I could say Steph Curry, he could be all three of my answers because Steph Curry
11:50and what he did for my own career for crying out loud is something that cannot ever be
11:55fully quantified.
11:57But there's so much out there that we all need to appreciate that maybe we don't.