One could say 49ers tight end George Kittle is taking ball security into his own hands this week after committing a costly fumble against the Arizona Cardinals last Sunday.

Kittle's fumble took place early in the first quarter of the 49ers' 31-17 home loss to the Cardinals. The fumble occurred around midfield after Kittle hurdled a defender and led to the first Cardinals touchdown of the game.



The fumble left a taste in Kittle's mouth that he doesn't want to experience again. He's been seen carrying a football around team facilities this week, which isn't necessarily a new thing for him but is one he hopes will help him prevent fumbles in the future.

"Just added extra emphasis on it," Kittle told reporters Thursday. "I know I don't have the greatest ball security. I think it's the first fumble I lost so it's annoying. Don't want it to happen again so just adding a little extra emphasis on it."

Kittle said Thursday he never carried a football around with him during his college days at the University of Iowa, where he was primarily used as a blocker. But he has been known to do so with the 49ers, at least over the offseason.

"Offseason I usually have one on me," Kittle said. "Not in the weight room obviously, but when you're going to run routes, having one on you so you always have your hands on the football."

While the thought of Kittle walking around off the field with a football in his arms is entertaining, it's also a positive display of leadership on his part. Kittle is taking full responsibility for what happened on Sunday and is taking what he feels are necessary measures to fix it.


"I think you have to do that every day, whether you're playing football or just in life in general," Kittle said. "You've got to be able to look at yourself in the mirror and, 'Hey, this is what I'm not doing right.' You can't really make excuses for yourself because everything that happens on the field, yeah you get in an unfortunate situation sometimes, but it was my choice to hurdle a guy, and lax ball security led to a fumble. How do I change that? Carry a football around so I'm holding onto it more."

Fumbles haven't been a huge problem for Kittle throughout his NFL career, having committed only one in his first four seasons before committing two in 2021. But it's obvious he feels any fumble is one too many, and it's clear he'll be aggressive about trying to fix it if it continues to happen down the line.

"You always have a choice to how you respond to situations, so I always just try get ahead of the thing," Kittle said. "Like I said, you've got to be able to look at yourself in the mirror and say, 'Hey, this is what I'm doing wrong and how am I going to fix it?' I'm not going to blame someone else for it, but I'm going to fix it doing this."

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