The 49ers star tight end dealt with a serious injury for half of the year in 2023.
The San Francisco 49ers had several players undergo surgery this offseason, with star tight end George Kittle being among the group as he dealt with a core muscle injury.
While the severity of the injury was unknown, the 49ers medical staff and Kittle agreed on having surgery following the season, leading to the tight end rehabbing to begin the team’s offseason program.
How is Kittle’s recovery coming along?
“Coming along. Progressing as planned,” Kittle said on Wednesday. The goal’s to be back and ready for training camp and all signs point to I will be ready for training camp.”
When talking about the injury, Kittle revealed that he actually was playing through the issue for half of last season, but the MRI scans didn’t reveal any major issue, which led to uncertainty on what the injury was at the time.
“[I played through it for] quite a while,” Kittle acknowledged. “I would say kind of like Week 9, 10. We took some MRIs of it and some stuff didn’t show up, so we weren’t really entirely sure of what we were dealing with until I got the surgery, so that was a tough one. We tried to figure it out, but things weren’t popping up on the scans and so just something we were playing through for 10 weeks.”
Kittle wasn’t the only 49ers player who dealt with an offseason core muscle surgery, as Charvarius Ward underwent the same procedure, which made the tight end’s process a little easier as he had a first-hand opinion to rely on ahead of his own surgery.
“He had surgery literally the week before I did, so it was just fun hearing [from someone] who had just experienced it too because if you have to get surgery, I like to do a second, third opinion and talk to different people who were doing it,” Kittle shared. “We ended up both going to the same guy and he had great success for it, so I went and did the same thing.”
“Overall, I think we’re both progressing at a good rate.”
Kittle still had a very productive season in 2023, catching 65 passes for 1,020 yards, which ranked second on the team behind Brandon Aiyuk.
Additionally, while the injury was severe enough to need surgery, Kittle didn’t seem as fazed by the issue during the season, as he accumulated four games of at least 75 receiving yards from Week 10 onwards.
Now, his focus is healing up for training camp as he prepares for another grueling season, with the 49ers still focused on bringing home their first Super Bowl since 1995.