49ers TE George Kittle Says It’ll Be Up To Veterans To Help Trey Lance “Out As Best We Can”

Who would win in a fight between a silver-back gorilla and grizzly bear?

That’s how San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle opened his press conference. He asked the question to the media before explaining why the grizzly bear would win. He then jokingly kicked out the media members who picked the gorilla.

Who would win in a fight? 🤔

A grizzly bear or a silverback gorilla? Drop your emoji below 🐻🦍@gkittle46 x #49ersCamp pic.twitter.com/vMLoHkuuW7

— San Francisco 49ers (@49ers) July 26, 2022

The tone was set early. George Kittle would keep things loose, letting out an excited “nice” when a member of the media told him Kyle Shanahan said it was Trey Lance’s team.

“I think I’ve had pretty good success with every quarterback I’ve played with here,” Kittle said. “Trey definitely brings a completely different dynamic to the football field than I’ve played with before so I’m looking forward to it.”

How can he and other veterans on the team help the young quarterback?

“The overall consensus would be that our best players need to play their best football. We need to do our best to make it as easy as we can on Trey. There’s going to be ups and downs and we need to play at a high level where if we play a game where Trey throws a couple of picks, it is what it is and we’re going to be playing well enough where we could win those games and if not, just encourage him to continue to get better because just his progress from being a rookie day one of OTA’s last year through training camp through the season through OTA’s these last couple of months, he’s gotten better…and he’s going to continue to progress and I think the more games Trey plays the better he’s going to get. And its going to be up to us to be around him and help him out as best we can.”

Kittle missed three games last season with a calf injury. When asked about his offseason regimen, he said he focused on getting his body familiar with explosive movements and getting “as healthy as possible.”

His offseason also included time at Trent Taylors’s wedding in Mexico and time at Tight End University, where he said he spent time with nearly 100 current and former tight ends.

“How Travis Kelce describes it vs Greg Olsen vs Dallas Clark are three completely different descriptions of how they attack certain coverages,” Kittle said, adding that he may not be able to move like Kelce but “I might move more like Greg does and just being able to see those comparisons and how different it is really, it’s just fun to pull all that stuff and put it together.”

Kittle also spoke about the team’s running game, the addition of Anthony Lynn to the coaching staff, what he expects to see from Nick Bosa this season, and learned his jersey is the second best selling in Mexico.

Watch the full press conference here. Follow Sactown Sports for more 49ers coverage.

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