The San Francisco 49ers' five-time Pro Bowl fullback, Kyle Juszczyk, joined the Haberman & Middlekauff podcast this week. The topics of discussion include his trip to Cabo San Lucas with tight end George Kittle and head coach Kyle Shanahan, the evolution of the fullback position, his Wikipedia photo, the Harvard experience, his nightmare of a draft party, the wild 2019 season, and more.
One interesting tidbit that Juszczyk shared was his story about initially signing with the 49ers in 2017. It looked like he was headed to the Buffalo Bills. On the night before Juszczyk planned to sign, his girlfriend, Kristin — now his wife — was in tears because she did not want to live in Buffalo.
"The next day, I told my agent, 'Hey, if you can get San Francisco to just match their offer, I'm there,'" Juszczyk shared. "So, he came to them with that, and they did it."
In the past, San Francisco has been criticized for paying so much money to a fullback. The team has indicated that there was a competition to acquire Juszczyk, though. It sounds like Buffalo was ready to pay Juszczyk the same money he has made with the 49ers.
"San Francisco has just been the perfect fit for me," Juszczyk added. "Kyle and Coach (Mike) McDaniel have just had such a vision for how they wanted to use me. It was such a seamless transition."
Juszczyk is scheduled to become a free agent next month. He is one of many Niners who played last season on the final year of their contracts. With the salary cap expected to drop, there is a lot of uncertainty surrounding his NFL future.
"I've been lucky enough to have the career that I've had these past eight years that I'm definitely going to have a lot of options," said Juszczyk. "But I also absolutely love San Francisco. I love playing for Kyle. I love playing for Mike McDaniel. Bobby Turner, my running back coach, is an absolute OG. I want to send him out the right way.
"But there's a lot more factors that come into play now. I'm 29 years old. I've been married for a while. We want to start a family soon. It's tough because our whole family is on the East Coast, and being out there on the West Coast, it's tough to really have our first child and basically be alone. That's something I have to think about and weigh in on my decision.
"But it's also football. I want to be on a competitive team. I know the Niners, we can get back to where we were a year ago, so it's tough for me to just want to give up on what I started."
Juszczyk adds that money is not everything, but he realizes NFL careers don't last forever, and he needs to take advantage of every opportunity he has while he still can.
You can watch the entire interview with Juszczyk below.