That's how close San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle was to being part of the highly-coveted "99 Club" in Madden NFL 21 by EA Sports. His rating of 98 was the best among NFL tight ends but wasn't enough to make him among the best in this year's installment of the popular multi-platform football video game.
What does Kittle think about the snub? He, along with linebacker Fred Warner and punter Mitch Wishnowsky recently spoke with 49ers team reporter Keiana Martin to discuss their ratings.
"They don't want me to be great," Kittle told Martin. "That's what it is. They don't want me to be great. Just because Christian McCaffrey is a 99 because he's beautiful and has biceps the size of my quads, doesn't also mean that I can't be a 99."
In addition to earning the highest overall rating among all 49ers players, Kittle's catch rating of 98 also leads the team.
"That's cool," he responded. "I'll take that. Sure."
Warner had an overall rating of 87, which he is content with as he enters his third NFL season. But he sounded like he expects the rating to be better in future versions of the game.
The linebacker felt his rating for catching should be in the 90s, though. It's 71.
"That's awful," he responded. "Listen, I put it on display. I mean, yeah, I dropped one or two …"
The 49ers punter didn't have his hopes as high as his two teammates.
"I'd take anything above 70," Wishnowsky said before being told his overall rating in the game is 76. So he's probably happy with that.
Although, Wishnowsky campaigned for his catching rating of 30 to be higher.
"If I wasn't a punter, I'd be a wide receiver," he said. "Eighty-four. My catching is just as good as my speed, if not better. Thirty is a bit rough."
"If Deebo (Samuel) has a higher breaking-tackles rating than me, that's just not okay," he responded. "It's Deebo, isn't it?"
It is. Samuel leads the 49ers in that category with a rating of 83.
"Sure, whatever," Kittle added. "I think I led the NFL in it the last two years, so it's whatever … I'm upset that Deebo is better than me at breaking tackles."
Click here to watch and listen to the three players' complete reactions to their most-recent Madden NFL ratings.
