Niners’ lowkey tight end Celek feels the love as he ends career
NFL stars often hold news conferences when they leave the game.
Garrett Celek? The 49ers’ longtime tight end conducted a retirement phone interview, of sorts, this week while driving with his wife, Sarah, from the Bay Area to his postfootball life in Cincinnati.
“Sorry, my dog is going crazy right now,” Celek said, explaining the background commotion. “We’re driving by these fields in Oklahoma and there’s these cows — and he’s just going nuts.”
It’s fitting the end of Celek’s eightseason career, all spent with the 49ers, came with little fanfare because it began the same way. And, frankly, the undrafted blocking tight end who averaged 8.3 catches a season escaped much attention during his 91 NFL games before stepping away as the team’s secondlongesttenured player.
So Celek, 31, was surprised that his retirement announcement, a short message he posted to Instagram on Feb. 7, inspired such a reaction from those he crossed paths with since entering the league in
2012.
“The last couple days, people have been reaching out to me left and right and just making me feel really loved,” Celek said. “I’ve never been a flashy guy. I never realized how appreciated I was until all those people started reaching out to me. It was really nice.”
Among those who has expressed his appreciation is AllPro tight end George Kittle, 26, who selected Celek, one of the team’s community service stalwarts, to be one of his groomsmen, credits him for making him a “better husband” and terms him “the big brother I never had.”
Celek, an offensive lineman in high school, has never sought attention. He said one of his favorite memories from his career is an 83yard touchdown pass from C.J. Beathard to Marquise Goodwin against the Giants in 2017, failing to mention he had a key blitz pickup on the play.
Before mentioning his careerlong 61yard catch against Houston that same season, Celek joked about being abused by passrusher Jadeveon Clowney throughout the game.
The guy who grinded out a career that included two Super Bowl seasons says his favorite year was 2017, when the 49ers started 09 and finished 610. Why? Celek loved how the team hung together and was uncommonly resilient.
Kittle jokes that Celek might be his dad’s favorite 49er. Bruce Kittle, a former offensive lineman at Iowa, pens a letter to his son before every game. The only other 49er he’s scrawled a pregame letter to is Celek.
“That’s one of Garrett’s flaws is he doesn’t understand how awesome of a guy he is,” Kittle said in a phone interview Friday. “… I think he’s always had an underdog thing. But he really doesn’t realize how many lives he’s impacted.”
Celek, who had 14 catches at Michigan State, wanted to continue an unlikely career marked by perseverance, toughness and selflessness. But he determined before the 2019 season that it would almost certainly be his last.
Celek underwent his second back surgery to repair a herniated disk in the spring, while he was still waiting to be medically cleared from a concussion he sustained in Week 16 of the 2018 season.
Celek wasn’t experiencing concussion symptoms last offseason, but his tests weren’t in line with his preconcussion baseline tests. He was cleared in September when he visited Dr. Jeffrey Kutcher, a leading concussion expert, in Utah.
“Even before that, I’d already kind of decided it was going to be my last year,” said Celek, who was in the final year of his contract. “I’ve had other injuries ... and I’d just come to the realization that with my body, my mind, everything, I was ready to be done.”
Beyond his back surgeries, Celek sustained at least two concussions in his career, and appeared on injury reports for issues with his hamstring, foot, quadriceps, knee, rib and ankle. In 2018, when he missed just one game, he played most of the year with a hernia and broken thumb.
He didn’t play in the first eight games last season while recovering from his back surgery, but he was activated to the 53man roster in late November when Kittle sustained a leg injury that sidelined him for two games.
Celek played 61 snaps in five games, ending his career in a 4846 win at New Orleans on Dec. 8. He’d volunteered to play last season despite knowing he needed more time to rehab.
“I could just tell I wasn’t the same guy I used to be,” Celek said. “We’d had a couple guys that were hurt at the time, and I said I could step in and help out. I was able to do that. And it got to the point where I’m like, ‘That’s it. Those guys are healthy. I did what I needed to do.’ ”
Part of the reason Celek is at peace with ending his career: He wasn’t sure he’d ever play a game in the NFL.
A selfdescribed worrier, Celek spent his career concerned he’d get cut. His anxiety was only heightened by the roster upheaval in his final six seasons, when the 49ers had four head coaches.
“I had four new coaching staffs over the years, and I had to prove myself every year to those guys,” Celek said. “It is hard, and sometimes it gets a little exhausting when you feel like, ‘Man, I have to keep proving it every year.’
“But I think, looking back on it, what I’ll probably miss the most is the challenge of it. At the time, it was kind of stressful, but that’s what made it so worth it.”
Celek hasn’t decided on his next step. He plans to spend the immediate future enjoying time with his wife, who owns a Pure Barre fitness studio in Cincinnati, meaning they’ve spent regular seasons apart.
He hasn’t ruled out returning to football, perhaps in coaching, continuing his relationship with a game to which he gave so much.
“Garrett loves football,” Kittle said. “He loves his teammates. He loves practice. And he loves the grind. And I think that’s one of the reasons people fell in love with him.”