In a little more than two weeks, the San Francisco 49ers will board their flight to Melbourne, Australia, for a season opener almost exactly eight months since George Kittle tore his Achilles.
Their star tight end hopes to have a seat on that plane.
“I still believe that. My team still believes that. My surgeon still believes that I have a chance,” he said Sunday, making his first media availability since training camp began.
It was astonishing when Kittle set the goal not to miss a regular-season game after he went down in the Niners’ wild card win over the Eagles this past January. Even more so now, seven months into the rehab process, as Kittle inches closer to that bold goalpost.
But he’s not there yet.
“These next couple weeks are everything,” Kittle said. “That’ll let me know if I’m ready to play Week 1 or not.”
The recovery for an Achilles tear is typically around 9-12 months. Kittle is well ahead of schedule, by all indications. That was the term he used in an appearance this weekend on SiriusXM Radio. On Sunday, he said he was “hitting top speeds” while running.
But he remains on the Physically Unable to Perform List and still hasn’t put on pads.
He’s been limited to individual work so far in training camp.
If he’s going to play Week 1, he said that needs to change sooner rather than later.
“I don’t want my first time in pads to be traveling to Australia,” Kittle said. “I just don’t think that’d be a very smart idea.”
Being smart is, in fact, about the general premise of this current stage of Kittle’s rehab: “Just trying to check the boxes and not be a dumbass, I’d say.”
The hard stuff is over. The boring stuff is behind him. The boxes left are the ones that involve running routes, making blocks and other football-related activities.
Of course, for Kittle, even rehab is fun.
“Relentless positivity from George, like always,” offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak said. “To me that’s what’s gonna make him get back from this injury and be himself again. Because he has the right mindset. He attacks everyday with positivity that he’s progressing and he’s healing.”
The mind-numbing path back from a torn Achilles tested that mindset. Now, almost on the other side, Kittle described it as “the most boring rehab in the entire world.”
For four months, all he could do was pick up marbles and do calf raises. He had to rebuild the strength in his right calf back to at least 90% of the level it was at before the injury.
He reached out to others who had gone through the process, including former cornerback Richard Sherman, and they all told him the same thing. The first eight weeks matter most.
“If you build a strong foundation, get your calf muscle back, get your strength back, then you’re allowed to train faster and get your body ready faster,” Kittle said. “We dominated those eight weeks. … I feel like we’ve knocked it out of the park.”
In the rehab clinic where his surgeon, Dr. Neal ElAttrache, sends all of his Achilles patients, they were sorted into two groups in a presentation to Kittle: “The people who’d done it right and the people who didn’t do it right,” he said. “Basically showed me all the red flags.”
He didn’t need any extra motivation when ElAttrache informed him Week 1 was a realistic goal.
“It was pretty easy to light a fire every single day,” Kittle said. “It was very aggressive. Looking back on it, I was like, it’s pretty crazy. Because I went from not being able to put any pressure on it, to I’m running routes. That’s just pretty cool to see.”
Most of Kittle’s rehab has taken place in isolation, over the football offseason. Now, teammates are putting on pads and hitting each other everyday on the practice field right in front of him.
“He’s getting antsy, obviously,” fellow tight end Jake Tonges said.
Kittle said if he’s not ready for Week 1, it wouldn’t make sense for him to fly 16 hours around the world with the team for a game he would only be able to watch. The Niners are set to depart a week before kickoff, Sept. 2, so that officially sets a countdown clock.
Kittle needs to get into pads and involved in practice by then.
But if not, he’s not stressing.
He’s “very confident” that he’ll avoid the PUP designation that would rule him out for the first four weeks.
“I want to play in every football game that I possibly can play in, but I’m also aware that it’s an 18-week season,” Kittle said. “So I’m aware that if you miss Week 1 and you’re playing Week 2, hey, it is what it is.
“The hardest thing really is just football conditioning. You can run as much as you possibly want and it’s not football. The whole goal is to just get the pads back on, get a helmet on and go run around in circles until I feel like I’m in good shape.”