Kittle has aged like fine wine, with his 2,126 receiving yards over the last two seasons easily the most among tight ends. His 14 TDs in that span are third most, trailing only the 17 apiece of Sam LaPorta and Mark Andrews. While he seems to suffer multiple injuries every year, Kittle often manages to fight through them, falling shy of 14 regular-season appearances only once in eight NFL seasons. He has surpassed 1,000 yards four times, including each of the last two seasons. There is one less mouth to feed in San Francisco after WR Deebo Samuel was traded to Washington in the offseason, while RB Christian McCaffrey and WR Brandon Aiyuk are coming back from season-ending injuries. Relative to other top tight ends, Kittle relies on per-target efficiency rather than volume, having finished last season seventh at the position with 94 targets. He made up for it by ranking second among TEs (50-catch min.) in both yards before the catch (7.5) and yards after the catch (6.7), sporting a high catch rate and tons of YAC despite getting some downfield looks. Kittle's talent is the main driver of that annual efficiency, but it helps when Kyle Shanahan and QB Brock Purdy have the passing game humming in general -- and even more so when McCaffrey or one of the starting WRs is injured.
