While the San Francisco 49ers have lost star tight end George Kittle for the season, a pair of tight ends are supremely confident about getting the job done for their team.
Kittle went down with an Achilles injury during the first half of the 49ers’ 23-19 Wild Card win over the Philadelphia Eagles. Niners tight end Jake Tonges said he and fellow tight end Luke Farrell are more than ready to take on the challenge in Seattle for the Divisional Round and possibly beyond.
“Super sad, obviously, you never want to lose George,” Tonges told reporters afterward. “But there have been situations this year where me and Luke have had to take over in his absence, so we didn’t panic at all and just said we got to go execute for this team.”
Tonges and Farrell didn’t light up the stat sheet, but they delivered blocks in both run and pass protection, which helped the Niners offense execute against the Eagles. Both Tonges and Farrell have played significant snaps this season, and they’ve done it before in Kittle’s absence after he missed games in Weeks 2-6 due to a hamstring injury.
“They were huge,” Tonges said. “Every game I feel more and more comfortable being out there, and those reps were invaluable. Me and Luke Farrell just said, ‘All right, here we go again, we got to step up.’ ”
Injuries Not an Excuse For Niners, Trent Williams Says
San Francisco star offensive left tackle Trent Williams said he wouldn’t accept Kittle’s injury as an excuse for the team. The 49ers as a whole came back from a 13-10 halftime deficit to win with two touchdown drives in the fourth quarter despite Kittle’s absence.
“It’d be really easy to use it as an excuse,” Williams told reporters afterward. “This is finally the last straw that’s going to keep us from doing this thing, but you just can’t have that mentality. You never know when you’re going to get this opportunity.”
“We are in the divisional round of the playoffs,” Williams added. “There are only so many teams left in this league, and we are one of them. So we are going to go out there and give everything we got.”
Williams had to overcome injury himself. He had a hamstring injury from Week 17, but he played against the Eagles and helped quarterback Brock Purdy have enough time to throw.
49ers Have Been Dealing With Big Injuries All Season
Dealing with injuries has been nothing new for the 49ers in the 2025 season, which goes back to Week 3 when star defensive end Nick Bosa went down with a season-ending ACL tear. For Williams, he noted that the team’s ability to bounce back from star linebacker Fred Warner’s injury in Week 6 was a factor on Sunday when Kittle went down.
“Seeing Fred down, laying there on the ground, and the condition he was in, it was hard for the team to shake back out there,” Williams said.
“I think that made us stronger for things like this. Kittle going down in the first half, if we didn’t have experience with that, it would have been easy for everyone to fold and nobody would have blamed us,” Williams added.
49ers TE Sends Message Amid George Kittle Injury