San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle gets asked about Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown a lot. After all, he was the one who seemingly kicked off the hype surrounding a potential Brown-to-49ers scenario.

Kittle has since dodged questions about Brown and deflected them toward head coach Kyle Shanahan and general manager John Lynch. Of course, neither can discuss Brown because he is currently under contract with the Steelers.


It turns out that quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo was the one who initiated the exchange. At least, that's Kittle's story.

It looked like Kittle was trying to court the disgruntled Steelers receiver on New Year's Eve when he posted "Sup? @AB84" on Twitter. Brown responded with the following.


Fans and the media went wild with speculation after that. Since the end of this past season, Brown has stopped following his current team on social media and started following the 49ers and several of their players.

But Kittle said Thursday on the "Jim Rome Show" that the idea to tweet at Brown wasn't his idea. It was Garoppolo's.

"You know what, Jimmy G dared me that I wouldn't do it," Kittle said. "And so I said, 'You know what? OK, I will do it.' And that's all it was. AB's a fantastic player. Anything that happens with players in the offseason, that's on Coach Shanahan and Mr. Lynch. Whatever decisions they make, I'm standing behind them."


Jim Rome heard that and figured he might as well try to dare Kittle to give him $10,000.

"No chance," Kittle responded. "You're not Jimmy G, man."

It was worth a try.



So it would seem Garoppolo might have some questions to answer surrounding Brown. Perhaps he feels the same way as Lynch, who is eager to add more weapons around the quarterback.


"We've got to continue to add playmakers around [Garoppolo]," Lynch said last week. "We've got some special playmakers. It's going to be nice to have Jerick McKinnon back. We spent a lot of money on him because we believed in him. (We will) put him out there with Kittle and the guys, and the Marquise Goodwins, and continue to add to that."

H/t to Eric Branch of the San Francisco Chronicle for the find.

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