49ers
49ers TE George Kittle adopts a selfless approach when it comes to the team’s offense and said that having an influx of talented weapons like RB Christian McCaffrey, WR Deebo Samuel and WR Brandon Aiyuk is a good problem to have.
“If I have one catch a game, I know my fantasy football coach would be really mad at me for that, but it is what it is,” Kittle said, via the team’s website. “As long as we’re winning games and we’re feeding the right guys the ball – I’m never going to get mad if Christian McCaffrey has 20 carries and 10 catches for 300 total yards, I’ll never be upset about that because he’s such a talented football player. It’s really fun to be on a team that does have a problem of too many mouths to feed, because coach Shanahan does such a great job of scheming everybody into getting certain plays and it’s just really fun to be a part of an offense that has so much talent on it.”
Kittle explained that his favorite aspect of the game is blocking which is something that was instilled in him from a young age.
“Back when I was in fifth grade, my dad was our coach in tackle football,” Kittle said. “The only drills we did, the entire team would have blocking pads and we’d all do O-line blocking drills. Everybody. Whether you’re a running back, quarterback, wide receiver, defensive back, corner, wherever it was, we’re all doing O-line drills. He would always tell us, ‘You’re all going to try your best to play offensive line, but not all of you are going to be good enough to play offensive line and you’re going to have to play another position like quarterback, wide receiver or running back. That’s okay, we’ll still like you, but O-line is the best position in football.’ So, that was my mindset growing up. I just have the mindset that ‘I’m going to love this and I’m going to be better than anyone else at it.’ Now, if I’m not getting the ball, I’m going to influence the game in the run game and I’m going to make the guy across from me, his life a living hell… You need me to pass-pro a guy who gets paid $100 million on third down? Bring it. I cannot wait. I can’t wait for you to be on my highlight reel where I block you and lock you down because ‘no tight end should block a defensive end’ is what everybody always says. I take that personally because I can block anybody. Nick Bosa is really difficult to block, but thankfully he’s on my team.”
Kittle added that he gets more satisfaction from de-cleating a defender than he does from scoring a touchdown.
“Don’t get me wrong, scoring touchdowns is awesome,” Kittle said. “It’s really fun, and that’s what you get paid for in the NFL. But when you can flatback a guy and you feel their exhale, their soul leaving their body, there’s not much more of an exciting response. When you tackle a guy and you smoke them… That’s an amazing feeling, there’s nothing quite like it. Every time I get to do that, I think, ‘I’m going to be in their head for a long time and I’m going to have free real estate.‘”
Rams
Rams HC Sean McVay thinks there are big things to come from RB Cam Akers now that he is healthy and back in the fold.
“He’s really capitalized on a lot of the momentum he built up toward the latter part of the year. And he’s going to be a huge part of what we’re doing moving forward,” McVay said of Akers, via RamsWire.com. “He’s had a great offseason. I love the rapport that he’s established with Ron Gould, our new running backs coach. Cam is going to be a central figure in this offense. I think he’s priming himself to have a great year. and also, I’ve loved what Kyren Williams has done in that running backs room. But Cam is a stud. He’s taking great care of himself physically, he’s in a good place mentally. Just continuing to mature and I’m really excited about what he’s going to do for us this year.”
Seahawks
Seahawks WR Tyler Lockett has been the model of consistency, topping 1,000 receiving yards each of the past four seasons and showing no signs of slowing down. But as he enters his age-31 season, Lockett admitted he can feel the chilly talons of age gripping his corporeal form.
“Yes, I think the biggest thing is even though you’ve been here a while and you’re a vet, you’re also fighting old age,” he said via Matt Calkins of the Seattle Times. “You’re fighting things that your body used to do normally, and now you’ve got to kind of get going. You’ve got to stretch more. You’ve got to kind of do a pre-workout before the real workout.”
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