49ers TE George Kittle Weighs In on the Rams Trading for DPOY Myles Garrett

Rich tried to break the bad news gently. The NFL season, he informed George Kittle, was already over. The Rams got Myles Garrett. The whole thing is toast.

Kittle played along with the funeral, then got serious about what the trade actually means for him. Garrett is a problem, and the 49ers tight end knows it.

"Myles is a fantastic player. He's a Defensive MVP for a reason, broke the sack record for a reason," Kittle said. "He's an amazing football player." That respect comes with a scouting report. Garrett, in Kittle's view, is about to get the same treatment the rest of the NFC West spent years giving Aaron Donald.

The blueprint is simple to describe and brutal to execute. "You make a game plan around him and make the rest of the team beat you," Kittle said. "Just don't let the best defensive player in the league beat you on every single snap."

He has lived this before. When the 49ers had to face Donald twice a year, Kittle said, the coaching staff poured an unreasonable amount of time into those weeks compared to any other game. They had to design plays to keep four hands on Donald at all times, because leaving him one-on-one carried, by Kittle's estimate, a 90 percent chance of a strip sack, a forced fumble, or a tackle for loss.

Then Kittle admitted something he wasn't sure he should. He enjoyed watching his coaches suffer through it. Seeing how stressed and sleep-deprived they got those weeks put a smile on his face, because it meant they were handing the offense a plan with a real chance to work. The rest was up to the players.

Rich pointed out the obvious storyline. The 49ers get the first shot at Garrett as a Ram, and locker rooms like San Francisco's tend to file away this kind of talk as motivation. Kittle didn't dodge it. "I love a great challenge," he said. "It's going to be really fun."

There was also a moment of comedy at Arizona's expense. When Rich credited Seattle and San Francisco as two NFC West locker rooms that would relish the matchup, Kittle noticed he had skipped the third team. Rich recovered by clarifying he meant two teams that made the playoffs last year, and the dig landed.

Kittle even found something to admire in how the Rams operate. Every time they trade picks for players, the team trots out that photo of their general manager with the "F them picks" caption, and Kittle confessed he enjoys seeing it once a year. "That is pretty funny," he said.

As for Aaron Donald, the door stayed firmly shut. Rich noted that Cooper Kupp had been on the day after the Garrett news broke and revealed he already texted Donald that he is not allowed to come back. Everybody appreciates Kupp for that, as the show noted, specifically centers, guards, tackles, and offensive coordinators.

When Rich teased that Kittle himself might be the first man chipping Garrett in a real game, Kittle didn't blink. A chip, a one-on-one in pass protection, whatever it takes. "It's football. I love it. I can't wait."