49ers TE George Kittle & Wife Claire Want These NFL Rules Changed ASAP

Rich has been playing the long game with George Kittle for years. "Having George Kittle on has always been about getting Claire on the show," he said, "and mission accomplished."

With the 49ers on their bye week, George and Claire Kittle joined The Rich Eisen Show together to talk about their new foundation, the Kittle Fund, along with Iowa basketball, a dog with impeccable aim, and the NFL rules Claire would change if she ran the league.

George said the Kittle Fund grew out of community work the couple has done going back to college, starting with the University of Iowa and the Iowa Children's Hospital, where athletes regularly visited with kids. "Our motto is, we want to show up for those who show up for us," he said.

The fund has four pillars: military veterans and their families, children facing illnesses, animal shelters ("we're big dog people," George said), and childhood literacy. On that last one, George said growing up able to read a bunch of books "allowed me to kind of be the person I am today."

Claire explained how the causes overlap. The couple helped start a program at the Iowa Children's Hospital that brings emotional support service dogs onto the floors, and they also pair service dogs with veterans returning home. "Now we finally get to put a name to it with the Kittle Fund," she said.

Rich related. His and Suzy's first rescue, Hudson, was trained and certified for that work. "There's nothing like watching a dog hop on a bed and having a kid's day made," he said.

People can find the fund on Instagram and Facebook at the Kittle Fund and at kittlefund.org. "No loopholes you got to jump through," George said.

The first project is deeply personal. Claire said her best friend Carrie passed away in June from colorectal cancer and liver cancer. Carrie learned she had cancer while she was pregnant, and she was also a nurse.

So the Kittle Fund is creating a room in Carrie's honor at the Iowa Children's Hospital, a place for nurses "to go and relax and kind of decompress," Claire said, a safe space to calm their nervous systems during long nights. The couple was heading to Iowa that weekend to meet nurses on several floors, pediatric oncology in particular, and to pick out the room. George said the trip includes a game, and it will be only the second wave he has ever been part of because he hasn't been back to a game since 2019.

Claire is also hosting one tailgate this season, on December 13 in Santa Clara, the day of the Rams game. Tickets will be sold, virtual tickets will be available too, and all proceeds go to Carrie's room. Carrie married one of George's best friends, who played football at Iowa, and she played volleyball there. "She was the most incredible person and mother," Claire said, "and we all try to live a little bit like Carrie every single day."

Rich pledged his support, recalling that George once flew to Indianapolis to hand out a check for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital when Rich was running six or seven years ago.

Rich then surprised Claire with a 2015 photo of her playing for Iowa, wearing number three and "looking intense," boxing out against Maryland at Carver-Hawkeye. "That girl's twice my size," Claire said. "It was so fun."

George admitted he used to sneak down and sit courtside at women's basketball games. Claire noted they had already met by then, and that he was "just trying to get in a couple extra brownie points." George said he went to plenty of games regardless, including a Big Ten tournament weekend in Chicago where he and two buddies split a $60 room at a La Quinta. "I slept on the floor and we went to three basketball games and we're in the front row just screaming our faces off for the women's basketball team."

Asked about the best players she shared a court with, Claire named Skylar Diggins and Brittney Griner as opponents and former teammate Samantha Logic, who played in the WNBA. "She almost knew the question you were going to ask before you asked it," Claire said. She also knew coach Bluder and her staff her whole life: her mom played basketball at Drake alongside Jan Jensen, and played high school AAU ball with assistant Jenny Fitzgerald.

Rich skipped his usual football question for George, given the 49ers are 6-1 and "everything's fine in your neighborhood." Instead he named Claire commissioner of the NFL and asked for one rule change.

Her answer: two bye weeks. With the 49ers at Week 8, the bye landed in a decent spot, but the season runs well into February. "It's 18 weeks of a season plus the playoffs," and it is draining. "It's rare that we get to a bye week and he's feeling good," she said.

George chimed in with his own wish: "Maybe some grass fields everywhere. Have some cohesiveness." He explained that "your joints just hurt a little bit more when you're running around on that. Let alone smacking your head on it."

Then George outed his wife's other gripes. "She's over the roughing the passer penalties," he said. And she doesn't understand illegal contact, a five-yard penalty with an automatic first down. Rich was fully on board. "I'm with you, Claire," he said, describing the frustration of a defense about to get off the field only for "a flag 15 million yards away thrown by somebody that's off camera." The logic offered on set was simple: if the ball isn't near you, why does it matter?

"Commissioner Claire Kittle," Rich declared. "Let's get that from now on."

Rich also checked on the dog that peed on a pillow bearing his face. The dog was running around the field in a cone after a recent procedure, and the pillow survived. It's in the barn, cleaned, because George wanted to keep it. "It's a gift," George said. "You don't get that opportunity very often."

Up next for San Francisco is a trip to Mexico City to play the Vikings. George said flight duration isn't the issue, "but getting used to that elevation is gnarly," recalling that the last time the 49ers played there, around 2022, they spent the whole week in Colorado Springs.

The couple also plugged their podcast, Kittle Things, and Claire's YouTube channel with Kristen Juszczyk, Wifed Up, Mic'd Up, which follows them to road games for behind-the-scenes fun like throwing fish at a Seattle fish market.

Finally, George explained his Monday Night Football shoutout with Scott Van Pelt. His goal was to get Van Pelt to race Rich for St. Jude, using the same rule the couple uses for friendly bets: "$20 to play and then it's $40 to not play." Rich doubted Van Pelt wants any of the smoke, joking he has tendons he didn't know he had. Either way, as Rich put it, the kids win.