Getty George Kittle celebrating a play with his San Francisco 49ers teammate Trent Taylor.
Though the San Francisco 49ers‘ 2022 NFL season is officially over, that hasn’t stopped members of the team from keeping their names in the news, especially when it comes to issuing votes of confidence to their teammates. From Fred Warner declaring that Brock Purdy has no reason to be down about how the season ended, to Brandon Aiyuk for calling his own squad the best team in the NFL, it’s been a big old love fest in Santa Clara, but until Thursday, February 9, not one had expressed that love in song.
Fortunately, that changed at the NFL Honors ceremony, as George Kittle popped up and reworked Kelly Clarkson’s hit “My Life Would Suck Without You,” to be all about his teammates, Purdy and Christian McCaffrey.
George Kittle: The People’s Singer 😂
“Yes our season’s over, and yes, that last game blew,” Kittle sang. “But Brock you should still feel proud, we wouldn’t be there without you. And Christian McCaffrey, dude can run, catch, and pass, but I prefer Nick Bosa, throwing Prescott on his a**. ‘Cause we belong, together, now, yeah. Forever united here somehow, yeah. You’ve got a piece of me, and honestly, my life, would suck without you, and you, and all of you guys too, thank you.”
While Kittle has hinted about a desire to pursue professional wrestling when his football playing days are done, it’s safe to say he won’t be transitioning to singing anytime soon, at least without a good bit of work on his craft.
George Kittle Comments on the San Francisco 49ers’ QB Situation.
When Kittle wasn’t spending his February singing on national television or hitting his teammates with stunners, he was commenting on the Niners and, specifically, their quarterback situation heading into 2023. Speaking with Von Miller on the appropriately named The Von Cast, Kittle threw his support behind his fellow Iowa product.
“Trey Lance is still there, and Trey, unfortunately, has not really gotten a fair shot of being an NFL quarterback yet. You got a full rain-game monsoon versus the Bears, and he got hurt in his second game,” Kittle said via NBC Sports Bay Area. “You know, Trey’s still got plenty of talent. He just needs to get out there and play.”
“But you can’t talk about what Brock Purdy did,” Kittle added. “He’s fantastic. Our offense was operating at the highest it’s probably been since 2019. So, in my opinion, it’s Brock’s job to lose. But there will be competition since Brock will be out ’til training camp with his surgery, so it’s going to be interesting. But when you find a guy like that [who] can seamlessly jump in, I think it’s his job to lose.”
In the grand scheme of things, who Kittle would like to see under center in 2023 likely won’t have too much impact on what Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch opt to do moving forward. Still, it’s nice to know that one of the 49ers’ top players believes in his Mr. Irrelevant QB, as if his Kelly Clarkson cover didn’t prove that already.
Christian McCaffrey Was Similarly Complimentary of Brock Purdy
Though McCaffrey didn’t get up and sing “Since U Been Gone” but with the lyrics altered to be about Purdy’s injury at the beginning of the Eagles game, he too had a ton of nice things to say about the former seventh-round pick out of Iowa State back in January, declaring that he saw greatness in the young QB.
“I saw greatness in him right there,” McCaffrey said on the 49ers Talk podcast.
“There’s a way that a lot of rookies are, and I think I was a little like that myself. I wanted to be great, obviously. He doesn’t act like a rookie. He doesn’t act like a rookie in the huddle. And he plays with a calm confidence that is rare, especially in rookie quarterbacks.”
A song it was not, but McCaffrey’s compliments surely sounded like music to Purdy’s ears at the time.