Pettis hopes to perform in season 2 like Kittle did
How is 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo looking now compared with last year?
It was a basic question, but wide receiver Dante Pettis confessed he couldn’t offer a good answer.
“I honestly don’t really remember what (he) was like (last year) because I was just so all over the place,” Pettis said. “But he’s looking really good right now.”
Yes, Pettis’ mixedresults rookie season was a bit of a blur as he struggled to fully digest head coach Kyle Shanahan’s voluminous playbook.
However, the expectation is the second-round pick will be looking really good in 2019, partly because he’s nearing a point where he can react instinctively instead of thinking his way through routes.
This, of course, sounds like standard NFL preseason talk in which every player is in the best shape of his life. But there is compelling evidence Pettis’ better grasp of the offense could result in a second-season leap in production.
That evidence: tight end George Kittle.
In 2018, Kittle followed up a so-so rookie season in which he said his head was swimming with a record-breaking year in which he had the most receiving yards (1,377) by a tight end in NFL history.
“Coach Shanahan’s offense is very dense,” Kittle said. “But once you figure it out, it’s one of the most fun times you’ll have playing football. … A guy like Dante, he’s just picking it up.
“He’s a smart dude and he’s freak-of-nature athlete. When you have that combo — and you’re no longer thinking about what routes you have — you saw (what he could do) at the end of the season last year.”
Pettis’ debut season was relatively modest: He had 27 catches, 467 yards and five touchdowns in 12 games after the 49ers traded a third-round pick to move up 15 spots to select him No. 44 overall. Most of his production came late in the season. Pettis had 17 catches for 338 yards and four touchdowns in a four-game stretch before a knee injury in Week 15 sidelined him for the season.
“I was able to play a little bit more,” Pettis said of his late-season surge. “And the more you play, the more comfortable you get being in the huddle and actually hearing the crowd, looking over and seeing the defense and hearing the quarterback calling the play.
“The last few games, I felt a lot more comfortable with that. Then in the offseason, being able to look back over the plays and getting the whole OTAs in has definitely helped me learn the offense a lot more.”
Still, Pettis didn’t struggle merely with X’s and O’s. He finished only 10 games because of two knee injuries and he didn’t protest Tuesday when a reporter asked about his “hesitancy” going over the middle of the field, a spot that often features the NFL’s biggest collisions.
Pettis, who is 6-foot-1, said he now weighs 197 pounds after finishing last season at 188.
“I know I’m not the thickest guy — I know I’m a little slimmer,” Pettis said. “So that’s something I’ve always been trying to work on: Just trying to gain a little more weight, get a little stronger. … It’s more having to do with dealing with the strength of the other players in the NFL.”