49ers’ George Kittle impressed with Trey Lance but draft night was unexpectedly stressful

George Kittle had a vested interest in who the San Francisco 49ers drafted on April 29. On the night of round one, like everyone other than general manager John Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan, the All-Pro tight end had no idea who the selection was going to be. And even after the selection became official, Kittle had no idea who his newest teammate was.

That's because there were some technical difficulties.

"So, I'm taking off on a plane to go to my bachelor party in Scottsdale, and during the draft, my flight took off as the third pick was announced," Kittle told Rich Eisen on Wednesday. "And so, I didn't see it until I could connect to Wi-fi about 30 minutes later. So, literally, it goes, 'The pick is in,' and then they all cut out, and I sat there for 30 minutes, like, 'Alright, I'm sweaty, and I don't know what's going on. Who did we pick? This is stressful. I can't call anybody.'

"But then, yeah, I finally connect to the Wi-fi after it gets to the 10,000 feet, and I was like, 'Alright, sick. Cool. This is going to be fun.' But it was, yeah, Trey-bay-bay. But that was a stressful 30 minutes for me."

Kittle has gotten to know the 49ers' No. 3 overall pick, Trey Lance, a little bit since then. The team started organized team activities this week, so the tight end has had an opportunity to see the rookie quarterback in action. As he told reporters on Tuesday, Kittle has been impressed by the 21-year-old.

"I got to be on the field with him, catch some passes from him," Kittle shared. "He's got a cannon (arm). It's just fun. Like I said yesterday, he looks better than a rookie quarterback, which is fun. We had our first live day, going against the defense on Monday. He hit a nice roll-out, a deep pass to my rookie tight end, Josh Pederson. It's not a throw that gets made a lot, and the fact that he did it on his first roll-out was pretty funny. And the fact that he completed it for a touchdown was pretty cool."

Kittle has been one of Jimmy Garoppolo's biggest supporters. However, the tight end isn't playing favorites now that both Garoppolo and Lance are his teammates.

"Rich, at the end of the day, they're both my teammates," Kittle shared. "So, I'm going to be both of their biggest hype-men. The great thing about football is the competition, and that competition is what breeds greatness, and that's what makes you better football players. If either one of my QBs — we have five QBs on the roster right now — if any of the five shy away from competition, then they don't really deserve to be on the football field.

"So, I'm excited about the competition in the room. I'm excited about the competition all over our team because I think we're pretty deep in some areas."