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Will 49ers Tight End George Kittle Request a Trade?

This story is just beginning.
Grant Cohn|
Dec 30, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle (85) before the game against the Detroit Lions at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Sergio Estrada-Imagn Images
Dec 30, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle (85) before the game against the Detroit Lions at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Sergio Estrada-Imagn Images | Sergio Estrada-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

George Kittle doesn't seem particularly pleased with the 49ers right now.

He said after their season ended that he wanted to sign an extension with the team and finish his career in Santa Clara, but he hasn't gotten an extension yet. The 49ers are notoriously slow negotiators. Meanwhile, the Arizona Cardinals just made Trey McBride the highest-paid tight end in the NFL -- he's getting $19 million per season.

Now, I'm guessing Kittle wants the 49ers to pay him more than McBride is getting paid. And the 49ers don't seem to have offered him anywhere near what he wants yet, and so he's a long shot to show up to Phase 1 of OTAs today according to The Athletic's Mike Silver.

If the 49ers don't make Kittle an offer he likes soon, is it possible he will request a trade?

Brandon Aiyuk requested a trade last year before he ultimately signed an extension with the 49ers. Sometimes trade requests are just part of the negotiating process.

But Kittle could be different. He will turn 32 in October -- he wants to win now. And the 49ers just let nine starters leave in free agency. So if they have a great draft this week, they might make the playoffs next season, but their Super Bowl window probably won't reopen until 2026 at the earliest.

Why would Kittle want to stick around for a mini-rebuild? Particularly if the 49ers don't make it worth his while financially? They could threaten to franchise tag him in 2026 and 2027.

Stay tuned. This story is just beginning.

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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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