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PFF Ranks 49ers TE George Kittle the NFL's 13th Best Player of 2024

George Kittle might be the most underrated player in the NFL.
Grant Cohn|
Jan 5, 2025; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle (85) against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
Jan 5, 2025; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle (85) against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images | Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

George Kittle might be the most underrated player in the NFL.

He's pretty much universally regarded as the best tight end, and that still doesn't fully capture his impact. Sure, he's an elite blocker. But in 2024, he also was the biggest mismatch in the league. No one could cover him -- not a safety or linebacker. The only person who could shut down Kittle was his head coach Kyle Shanahan when he didn't call Kittle's number.

On another team, Kittle probably would catch 100 passes per season. On the 49ers, he averages roughly 80 catches per season. And he's still the 13th-best player in the league according to Pro Football Focus.

"Kittle once again proved why he is arguably the best all-around tight end in the NFL," writes PFF. "He led the position with a dominant 92.4 receiving grade while also ranking second among tight ends with a 70.8 run-blocking grade. His 2024 season featured a career-high 70.6% contested catch rate and a 2.62 yards per route run mark—his best since 2020."

Kittle is a future Hall of Famer who should have a few dominant seasons left in him. The 49ers most likely will extend his contract this offseason and make him the highest-paid tight end in the NFL for the second time in his career, as he should be.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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