George Kittle joined Kevin Clark and Steven Ruiz of The Ringer, sharing an interesting look into the mind of San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan. Of course, it's nothing new to fans following the team for years. Still, it is an interesting tidbit for those who do not know this particular strategy of the 49ers play caller.
"We played Seattle in the playoffs this year," the All-Pro tight end shared, "and Kyle has this thing where if he wants to set up a play action or a bootleg type of pass, he'll just call a run play that he knows is not going to work. I can't remember what game this was. I want to say it might have been the Vikings one year, Seattle this year. We're running a run play multiple times, and it's averaging, like, two yards a carry, two yards a carry, two yards a carry.
"And then we threw a play-action behind it, and [WR] Deebo Samuel goes for 75 yards against Seattle. And the whole thing is set up because it's the exact same motion. It's the exact same alignment. It looks the exact same. And all of a sudden, Deebo is running the shallow. I'm faking on the defensive end. The linebacker thinks it's power. He steps up four yards, and Deebo's uncovered in the flat running for a touchdown."
Kyle Shanahan is all about getting the "YAC Bros" open!
One-third of the trio, @gkittle46, joined @bykevinclark and @theStevenRuiz on 'Slow News Day' to discuss the ways Shanahan uses the 49ers skill players in his scheme. pic.twitter.com/aTx85yH9pE
— #RingerNFL (@ringernfl) June 14, 2023
Those kinds of setups make it fun for Kittle to play within Shanahan's offense, knowing that it's like chess, with the coach using a current move to set up a potential big move down the line.
"[Shanahan is] like, 'Hey, if I can get my skill players ball with field, like with space in front of them, whether it's [RB] Christian McCaffrey, [FB] Kyle Juszczyk, George Kittle, Deebo Samuel, [WR] Brandon Aiyuk, [WR] Jauan Jennings, we're all running for days, and that's what's really fun because we have such a great YAC (yards after the catch) team, and that's one thing that we always talk about. So he can scheme us open, and it's really fun to be a part of that offense."
Clark asked Kittle if he thinks Shanahan intentionally wastes plays to set up other plays. The tight end shared an example of film from another game where an offense showed the defense a look, executing a pass play. Later in the game, they show the same look. However, this time, it is a run that goes for 80 yards because the defense was playing the pass.
"Everybody was discombobulated because it changes up the whole structure of the defense because now they're like, 'Oh, we have to overplay that,'" Kittle shared. "And now that's when all the passes get actually open. He calls it 'unlocking the defense,' which I'm a huge fan of because you can see that when the defense does [that], they have to change up, and they can't just continue with their game plan.
"And then once you do that, and then now they're guessing about what we're doing, that's when Kyle just kind of eats people's lunch because that's what he's really good at, is those game plans."