Kittle bulldozes defenders, but coach offers a tip
Sorry, NFL defenders, but this story begins with some unfortunate news: George Kittle, the league’s most violent blocking tight end, might generate even more force if he corrects a flaw in his technique.
This could mean the Steelers cornerback who Kittle drove into the 49ers’ bench this season (Looking at you, Joe Haden) ends up in Section H in the future. And that Falcons safety he impaled on a 2yard touchdown run (Hi, Ricardo Allen), could one day leave one of
those crimescene body imprints in the end zone.
How could this happen? Well, LeVar Woods, Kittle’s position coach during his final two transformative seasons at Iowa, insists his expupil will truck defenders more devastatingly in Sunday’s NFC Championship Game against Green Bay if he tucks in his arm.
“He doesn’t want to hear me say this, but I’m going to say it: He could still be better with his technique,” Woods said in a phone interview this week. “When you talk to him, you tell him that his coach from Iowa said that he needs to tuck his backside elbow. He can still even be better and put more guys on their back. … He’s flailing his backside elbow.”
Good news, LeVar: The message was delivered Thursday to the firstteam AllPro whose resume over the past two seasons includes 2,430 receiving yards and a featurefilmlength highlight reel of pancake blocks.
“Oh, yeah, that was our biggest argument in college; I wasn’t keeping my backside elbow in,” Kittle said, smiling. “And I was like, ‘Well I’m still moving guys so why does it matter?’ ”
Kittle, who gave Woods his Pro Bowl jersey last year with a heartfelt note he penned about his coach’s influence, jokingly gave Woods a message in return.
“I hear it,” Kittle said. “I’m trying my best. I hear your coaching. Stop yelling at me. I got it.”
Woods clearly thinks he has the answer for how Kittle could get better as a blocker.
But it’s worth asking why Kittle is so good.
Right tackle Mike McGlinchey terms him “an extension of the offensive line.” And right guard Mike Person said Kittle could move inside and “become the fastest guard in the NFL.” When FS1’s Doug Gottlieb opined this season that Kittle “was not really a blocker” social media responded as if Gottlieb had said Stephen Curry was not much of a dribbler.
So what allows Kittle to be a terror in the trenches? That openended question inspired a host of uniform responses.
“His biggest strength,” fullback Kyle Juszczyk said, “is he doesn’t hesitate and he shocks defenders.”
Said Person: “I think the biggest thing is he doesn’t have any hesitation.”
Offered Woods: “The thing that stands out the most about George is how fast he comes off the ball and gets on the opponent.”
In other words: Kittle, who generates much of his force from his lower body, has the quickness of a skillposition player and the strength of an offensive lineman.
Kittle explained he initially relied on his quickness to survive during his early, aimless college years, which came before he ditched Iowa City’s bars for the weight room.
“My first three years I never got over 225 pounds, so it’s pretty hard to block guys like that,” Kittle said. “So my theory was if I can hit you really hard before you realize that I’m hitting you, I have an advantage. I kind of do the same thing now. I weigh 240 pounds. I’m blocking 280pound defensive ends. So if I let them get on me, I’m going to get completely thrown out of the club. My whole theory is, I’m going to run through your face before you’re ready for it. That usually shocks guys and gets them off the ball.”
After Kittle bulked up, he went from merely surviving to enforcing. When asked about an early moment that indicated he could flourish as a blocker, both Kittle and Woods told the same story.
In spring practice before Kittle’s junior season, the backup tight end matched up against AllBig Ten defensive end Drew Ott in a blocking drill.
“He always whupped my ass,” Kittle said. “And there were backtoback plays where we were running outside zone and I pinned him and I took him 10 yards vertical. And that was when I was like ‘All right, I can do this.’ ”
Said Woods: “Everyone was like, ‘What the heck just happened? George Kittle hasn’t done this.’ ”
There are other reasons Kittle now does this routinely in the NFL.
There is the matter of his pedigree: His dad, Bruce, was an offensive tackle at Iowa, where he was a cocaptain before he became an assistant coach at Iowa and Oklahoma.
And then there is Kittle’s enthusiasm for wrecking defensive players, which isn’t a passion shared by many other elite passcatchers.
Head coach Kyle Shanahan said Kittle has never requested a specific pass play during a game, but he approaches him about “every seven plays” about run plays that should be dialed up.
“The run plays he suggests are kind of halfthoughts,” Shanahan said. “They are more to how he can hit someone. ‘Let me go get this guy,’ and then I’ve got to figure out what run play allows him to do that.”
Last weekend, Kittle wore a microphone during the 49ers’ 2710 divisionalplayoff win over the Vikings in which the 49ers had 186 rushing yards on 47 attempts, and Kittle had three catches for 16 yards.
At one point, Kittle looked to the sideline and screamed, presumably to Shanahan: “Run it again! Run it again!” After a play in which he made a big block on a 11yard run by Tevin Coleman, Kittle, on the ground, flexed his arms and let loose with a devilish scream.
“I think he’s an offensive lineman at heart,” Person said. “He kind of lives to run the ball and have contact on every single play.”
Said Juszczyk of Kittle, a wrestling enthusiast: “After those big blocks, he does his WWE strut back to the huddle.”
Tight end Levine Toilolo said other passcatching tight ends don’t invest as much in blocking because they need to catch their breath.
“It’s tiring to do both,” Toilolo said. “It takes a lot of energy and effort. For him to put in the effort, but not only that — to have that enthusiasm? It says a lot about him as a player and a person.”
What are Kittle’s favorite blocks? He responded by ticking off games in which he was particularly violent.
There was North Dakota State as a senior: “I assaulted some people that day.”
And Nebraska, throughout his career: “I completely whupped them every single time I went against them.”
And there was a specific shot he put on a Packers linebacker last year that inspired the sound of runblocking success: “When you can hear their soul leave their body, that’s a great feeling. I had a couple of those in college. When you can feel like the ‘uhhhh’ in their exhale. Yeah, you can’t get up from that one.”
It sounds as if Kittle is inflicting enough damage — even if his backside elbow is flailing. Is Woods sure it’s necessary for his expupil to generate even more force?
“That’s all right,” Woods said. “My allegiance is to George. Not to those defenders.”