George Kittle is still good at football. That’s been true all year. The last two weeks have indicated that despite an early injury this season he’s still a dominant pass catcher in the NFL.
Kittle had four catches for 93 yards and two touchdowns in Week 15 against the Seahawks. He helped spark San Francisco’s 21-13 victory that clinched the NFC West. He backed that up with another excellent showing in the 49ers’ 37-20 win over the Commanders on Saturday.
He hauled in six of his eight targets for 120 yards and two touchdowns. One of the scores was a 34-yard deep shot down the middle of the field. The second TD was a vintage Kittle catch-and-run where his physicality was on display via defenders making business decisions instead of trying to make tackles.
While Kittle did have 42 catches for 500 yards and four touchdowns through his first 11 games of the year, he’d gone over 90 yards only once. In his last two games he’s gone over that mark twice and has four touchdowns. He’s up to eight TDs this season, two more than the career-high he had a season ago.
Early in the year the inconsistency in Kittle’s performances led to questions about his usage and whether he could still be an impact pass catcher on a regular basis. The last two weeks have quelled any concerns that Kittle’s best years as a receiver are behind him, and now he’s getting hot again as his rapport builds with quarterback Brock Purdy just in time for the postseason.
If the 49ers are getting this version of Kittle with WR Deebo Samuel returning from injury, they’re going to be extremely hard to stop on offense in the playoffs.
