The primary offensive focus of the offseason for the 49ers has been on the quarterback position because Brock Purdy‘s elbow injury has created uncertainty about who will be under center in Week One of the regular season, but any quarterback for the team will be helped out by the overall state of the offense.
Having running back Christian McCaffrey in the lineup with the likes of tight end George Kittle and wide receivers Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk means that there are a lot of places to go with the ball on a given play. That makes life easier for a quarterback, but it could make some players bristle about not being the No. 1 target offensively.
That’s not going to be an issue for Kittle.
“If I have one catch a game, I know my fantasy football coach would be really mad at me for that, but it is what it is,” Kittle said, via the team’s website. “As long as we’re winning games and we’re feeding the right guys the ball – I’m never going to get mad if Christian McCaffrey has 20 carries and 10 catches for 300 total yards, I’ll never be upset about that because he’s such a talented football player. It’s really fun to be on a team that does have a problem of too many mouths to feed, because coach Shanahan does such a great job of scheming everybody into getting certain plays and it’s just really fun to be a part of an offense that has so much talent on it.”
The 49ers have gone to the last two NFC title games and they made it to Super Bowl LIV, so their approach has paid off on the field and that makes it much easier to sell players on giving up individual glory for team success. The goal this season will be to finish the job and take home the team’s first Super Bowl win in two decades.
