George Kittle spoke with reporters after today's practice. The San Francisco 49ers tight end's availability for Sunday against the Seattle Seahawks seems up in the air right now. Kittle has been dealing with what has been described as "calf soreness." He did not practice on Wednesday or Thursday and was limited this afternoon.
Still, it's George Kittle, and you never want to rule him out of anything.
"Totally faking it," Kittle joked. "Yeah, I'm feeling good."
Today, head coach Kyle Shanahan told reporters that the issue didn't originate from the Green Bay Packers game. It started in either Week 1 or Week 2. The coach couldn't recall which game, specifically.
"He'd gotten stepped on pretty hard, so that bothered him," Shanahan said. "... We just thought that was irritated a little bit on Monday, but the fact that it was bothering him more than last week just concerned us a little bit more."
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Said Kittle: "Yeah, just dealing with some swelling stuff, a little pain, and just doing what we can to make sure I'm available to play on Sunday."
How does the tight end feel about his availability for this weekend's NFC West clash? Does Kittle feel things are trending in the right direction? There was a long pause before he responded to that question, which could be telling.
"I mean, I'm going to do everything I can to be on the field on Sunday," he finally said. "And then, if my body says I can go, I'll be out there."
Kittle's head coach says the situation may become more clear over the weekend.
"I think we'll have a pretty good idea tomorrow," Shanahan said. "I think I said earlier in the week that I thought he would be alright. The fact that he wasn't ready to go on Thursday just worried us a little bit more than we were expecting.
"The fact that he could do a little bit today was much more encouraging than what it was yesterday, and hopefully, we have that same result tomorrow."
