49ers Notebook: MetLife turf strikes again; Clelin Ferrell returns with a heavy heart; George Kittle, KPop Demon Hunters fan?

There's a much better feeling surrounding the San Francisco 49ers this week than there was one week ago, even though it comes with an all-too-familiar downside.

The 49ers moved to 6-3 on the season with a 34-24 win over the New York Giants at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey on Sunday in a game that saw them put on a much better performance than their bleak 26-15 road loss to the Houston Texans one week eariler. But the mood was soured a bit late in the game when the team lost rookie defensive lineman and first-round pick Mykel Williams to a possible torn ACL.

It wouldn't be the first time the 49ers lost a player to the infamous MetLife Stadium turf, which has long been criticized by players throughout the league. We're going to get into that more in this edition of 49ers Notebook, plus we'll hear from defensive end Clelin Ferrell on his return to the field and tight end George Kittle on why he loves the movie KPop Demon Hunters and what role that (and one other) film played in Sunday's win. Let's get into it...

MetLife turf monster slays another?

It almost seemed for a while like the 49ers were going to escape their latest game at MetLife Stadium without a serious injury, but unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be.

Late in the fourth quarter, the 49ers lost defensive end Mykel Williams to a knee injury on a play where he broke through to pressure quarterback Jaxson Dart. It's hard to see exactly where Williams hurt his knee when looking at video of the play, but 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan told reporters afterwards that the injury could be a torn ACL.

The 49ers will get confirmation tomorrow and are still hoping for the best. But for now, it looks like Williams will be the latest name in the long list of players to come out of a game at MetLife Stadium with a serious injury.

Williams' injury comes on the heels of a season-ending ACL tear to Giants wide receiver Malik Nabers, which resulted in plenty of discussion about the turf in early October. After the injury, the Giants and Jets reportedly responded to calls to replace the turf with grass by saying there were no plans to do so.

The 49ers have an awful history with injuries at MetLife, most notably in an infamous game against the Jets in 2020 where they lost defensive linemen Nick Bosa and Solomon Thomas to torn ACLs and quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo to a high ankle sprain. The NFL doesn't seem to feel the turf at MetLife, which was replaced in 2023, is problematic, but players and fans feel otherwise.

Regardless of how safe the turf may or may not be, the 49ers likely aren't anxious to play on it anytime soon. Tight end George Kittle, who didn't play in the 2020 game, gave his opinions on the MetLife turf when speaking with reporters on Sunday.

"This is the last stadium I've ever not played in, so it was my first experience on the turf, really," Kittle said. "I'll say I think it's significantly better than it was in 2020 because it's all packed down and people have been playing on it. My only issue with it is like when someone's field is like the butt of a joke throughout all of social media constantly, like on every NFL meme page, all that stuff, everybody jokes about how bad it is, I feel like at that point, someone should just take a look at it.

"No NFL field should be the butt of a joke, ever. I feel like all the fields should have a level of safety to it. I just don't get like why there's not a standard for, hey, you got to pick between one or two turfs. There shouldn't be 12 different turfs and 12 different grass fields, and then a couple of guys have the same things. Because most other sports, it's not like basketball players play on different hardwood. That's all the same. Soccer players in Europe all play on really nice grass, so it's just weird to me. But that's really way above my pay grade. I don't make the money to make those decisions, but I'd love to."

If Williams' injury is indeed season-ending, he would join a list of season-ending defensive injuries that includes Bosa, who tore an ACL in Week 3, and linebacker Fred Warner, who suffered a broken and dislocated ankle in Week 6.

Ferrell makes a mark in return, but with a heavy heart

Williams's injury will quite possibly ensure that the 49ers will look for more help on the defensive line before the league's November 4 trade deadline. They were able to get some last week with the addition of Keion White in a trade with New England and the free agent signing of Clelin Ferrell, who was playing in his second game of the season after being with the Los Angeles Chargers earlier in the year.

Ferrell, who was solid with the 49ers during a stint with the team in 2023, had three tackles on Sunday and a highlight sack on quarterback Jaxson Dart. The sack is fun to watch on film, even if Ferrell said he made a mistake on the play.

"Coach Kris (defensive line coach Kris Kocurek) talked about it all week," Ferrell told reporters Sunday. "He (Dart) likes to scramble up through the B gaps, and I had gotten way too high up the field. But effort can make up for certain mistakes, so that's all that it was."

Ferrell was happy to be back on the field with the 49ers, but at the same time his mind was elsewhere, as he was thinking about former Raiders safety George Atkinson, who was a mentor to Ferrell in his early playing days and recently passed away at age 78.

"It was a good feeling, but at the same time I was just trying to be as locked in as possible," Ferrell said. "I don't take this for granted at all. I know how special it is to put this jersey on. Me personally, honestly, someone who was really, really close to me early on in my career, George Atkinson, passed away recently. That was someone who football lost a legend, so I just had him on my mind the whole day. I just wanted to wear my heart on my sleeve out there and play hard."

Ferrell was also affected by the injury to Williams, who had made an impression on him in a very short time.

"Oh my gosh, because he's just someone who's such a good dude, a good spirit, and he loves football, anytime you see somebody like that, me being his teammate and just how much he cares about the game, it was a quiet moment on the field," Ferrell said. "But he'll be good for sure."

Ferrell added, "Mykel, he's somebody who's obviously just very attentive and likes to ask questions. That's something that's very rare in a young player because a lot of times you just want to show the older guys that you've got it already. But he's someone who has no hidden agenda. He's just a sponge, so that's the kind of thing that made me get drawn to him, for sure."

We're going up, up, up

An NFL locker room isn't the first place one would look to find a fan of the Netflix smash hit movie KPop Demon Hunters, but there's at least one player who seems to love the movie.

And for some reason, it seems only right that player would be George Kittle.

Kittle revealed his love for the movie when discussing a moment during Sunday's game when he was dancing with the crowd. The worldwide No. 1 hit song "Golden" from the movie's soundtrack was played during a timeout at MetLife Stadium, and Kittle used the opportunity to show the fans how it's done (done done).

"KPop Demon Hunters is a great movie," Kittle said. "I actually got made fun of by multiple people for wanting to watch it. I was like, 'Look, it's like the number one streamed movie globally after like two days. So I got to watch it.'

"Turns out (it's a) great movie. Good plot, good storyline, character development, great music. And so they played like the number one hit from that, was it 'Golden'? And it got great energy. The crowd responded well. I was like, 'Let's just have a nice little dance party, get the juices flowing, you know?' The Niners Faithful represented it very well, so I was pretty pumped about that."

Kittle's dance party was just one example of 49ers' fans making their presence felt at MetLife.

"Oh, they were so good. They always are," Kittle said. "Our road fans are just so good because a lot of the road fans, like this is their only opportunity to see us, and so they just go balls to the wall, I'll say, when they're cheering out there, and it's just so fun to see them. They're just so excited to watch us play and you can just feel that energy really throughout the entire game as long as we give them something to cheer about."

KPop Demon Hunters wasn't the only movie to have an impact on Kittle during Sunday's game. The other, as Kittle revealed while letting his postgame press conference wander off on a weird tangent, was a recently released movie called "Primitive War," which Kittle said got him fired up for this week's game. As for why... well, it's easiest to just let him explain:

Sweep this one under the rug

Maybe the strangest call of Sunday's game came early in the third quarter when the 49ers decided to run a jet sweep to Kittle on a 1st-and-10 from the Giants' 11-yard line.

The play resulted in a three-yard loss and played its part in the drive ending in a field goal instead of a touchdown. Shanahan didn't have much to say about the play after the game outside of terming it a "pretty bad call."

Trent Williams responded to a question about the play with a "Ha!" before adding, "They defended it pretty well."

As for Kittle, he sounds bummed that he probably won't get another chance to run the play.

"I don't remember the last jet sweep I had," Kittle said. "It was probably like 2021. I don't remember the last one. You know, it was a good look. They were actually in a weird front where they didn't even have a defensive end and so Juice (fullback Kyle Juszczyk) had to arc around the 5-technique who kind of picked Trent (left tackle Trent Williams) because Trent's supposed to get to the back and he couldn't get there. So there's a lot of people in my way and that it's gonna crush my average. So I don't know if I'm gonna get another one of those anytime soon, which is disappointing."

Perfect passing? No big deal

Those who were watching Sunday's game at home likely saw that 49ers quarterback Mac Jones entered halftime having completed all 14 of his first-half passes. But 49ers players, including Jones, did not seem to notice.

"No. Am I supposed to?" Jones joked after the game.

Running back Christian McCaffrey didn't notice either, saying "I did not know that, no. That's awesome though."

Jones went on to tell reporters that he actually entered the half upset over the fact that his fumble on a sack by linebacker Brian Burns with less than a minute remaining in the second quarter killed a final opportunity to score before the half.

"I never really think about it like that to be honest... But that is cool," Jones said about his perfect first half passing stats. "Honestly, right before half we had a touchdown, and I just took too long and didn't step up on that fumble or whatever it was. We really were going to score there, so I was pissed about that."

Jones was happy, however, that his hot first half contributed to the offense building some early momentum.

"I definitely feel like we started better as an offense," Jones said. "That's been the complaint for the past couple of weeks, so we definitely want to do that the best we can and continue those drives, too. And we really left some out there, so we've just got to get better."

Looking out for his friend

Back-up quarterback Adrian Martinez made his NFL debut on Sunday, thanks in part to Jones.

Jones told reporters Sunday that after the 49ers moved into kneel-down mode late in their win, he took himself out of the game in an effort to make sure Martinez had a chance to go in.

"Kyle already took his headset off, and I'm like 'Go on, Adrian.' So I just subbed myself out, snuck to the sideline," Jones said. "But I was happy. I think Adrian was going to go in either way. They wanted him to get in there.

"Once we were taking a knee, I definitely wanted Adrian to be there. He's just been awesome, to be honest. He's a good friend of mine. I've just gotten to know him. He's been a great voice in that room along with Brock (Purdy) and (Kurtis) Rourke as well. So we've got a great room."

Martinez, who joined the NFL as an undrafted free agent in 2023, had stints with the Detroit Lions and New York Jets before signing with the 49ers in August. He had yet to take a snap in an NFL game before Sunday.