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 just once in eight NFL seasons. He has exceeded 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 both coming back from season-ending injuries, leaving Kittle as the safest option for 2025 among San Francisco's big-name skill position players. 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 (with 50-plus receptions) 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 not only seeing short targets. Kittle's talent is the main driver of that annual efficiency, but it helps his production if Kyle Shanahan and QB Brock Purdy have the passing game humming in general -- and even more so when they end up playing without McCaffrey or one of the starting wide receivers.
