Kittle agrees to $75M extension with 49ers
Yahoo Sports' Terez Paylor breaks down why George Kittle's $15 million a year offer from the 49ers will reshape the market for tight ends.
Video Transcript
TEREZ PAYLOR: Kittle is now the highest-paid tight end in pro football by a mile. This is a significant deal. He's getting paid $15 million per year. That tops the previous highest-paid tight end, which that deal was actually just given out a few months ago by Cleveland Browns to Austin Hooper. But that deal came in at $10.5 million a year.
Again, George Kittle coming in at $15 million per year with a lot of guaranteed money. For him, he completely reshapes the tight end market. And as a pro football player, that's all you can ask to do, just completely reshape the market at your position.
I think what's interesting is to consider why the 49ers would go so far above and beyond in paying George Kittle. And there's a couple reasons why. First of all, he's a program guy.
What does that mean? That means a guy that fits into every facet of what you do, both as a person and scheme wise. He's a team captain. He's a revered player on that team.
I've talked to many of his teammates at bottom who have nothing but positive things to say. He brings a lot of energy, a lot of emotion to the field. He's a net positive as a person on game day-- and actually, throughout the course of the week, but even beyond that as a player.
You pay a guy this far above the next guy when you know that he does things for you that no one else can. What does he do for the 49ers? Well, he's the game's best run blocking tight end. In a game where it's harder to find tight ends that are even adequate blockers, Kittle was a dominant blocker.
And guess what? Nobody runs like the 49ers. This is the most run-dominant team in football. They use all kinds of different concepts with Kyle Shanahan.
And the key to that is Kittle, because he can block those things. And he's also a very, very dangerous receiver at every level of the field. Running after the catch threat, deep threat, he can do it all. So to kind of make that offense go, you need that do-it-all tight end. And George Kittle is that.
So I think it's interesting that the 49ers chose to pay him. He's still in his prime. They didn't have some long, protracted, multi-year fight over this.
They just paid the guy. And I think that's a smart thing to do. When a guy matters this much to your team, you don't risk engendering some bad feelings to save a little bit of money.
I want to spin this forward a little bit really quickly and take a look at what this means for the next crop of tight ends set to get paid, specifically two in particular-- Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs and Zach Ertz of the Philadelphia Eagles. Both those guys are elite tight ends. And both of them are due new contracts after the 2021 season.
I think both of them should make a play to least approach Kittle's money. I don't know if they'll top it. But they can at least try to approach it.
Both of them have a case. Both those guys are Super Bowl-winning tight ends who had huge moments in the Super Bowl, right? Both of them do things for their teams that aren't easy to find.
Ertz is a very good receiver in a league where in that offense, that's very important. And also, Travis Kelce might be the best route-running tight end in football. And we know how most the Chiefs throw with Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid. So here's another player who's not that easy to replace.
I think both those guys kind of have something to shoot for now. I don't know if they're going to get to Kittle's contract, because it's so far above market value. But this is certainly good news for those guys. And I think it's going to be interesting to see all those negotiations go going forward.