George Kittle talks WrestleMania 41 + Travis Kelce’s greatness

https://sports.yahoo.com/george-kittle-talks-wrestlemania-41-182458725.html

Yahoo Sports NFL contributor Jason Fitz chats with San Francisco 49ers Tight End George Kittle from Super Bowl LIX Radio Row. George joined Yahoo Sports on behalf of Little Caesars.

Video Transcript

Hanging out with 49ers superstar George Kittel joining us on behalf of Little Caesars.

We will get to some pizza pizza.

Yeah, I like the shirt, man.

That’s some fashion forward work by that.

Thank you.

It’s good.

I get to wear a comfy, nice graphic tee and everyone else is out here in polos and stuff like that.

I like that you’re sending the message though.

I, I enjoy myself.

We’ll talk about perfect just like pizza pizza.

Oh God, yeah, we’ll talk about perfect pizza.

in a 2nd.

1st we’re going to play a game.

What’s in the tarot cards?

3 down, face down.

You decide which one you want me to flip over.

There’s a question that corresponds with it.

So we’ll go 123.

They’ve been shuffled and everything.

Which one do you want?

He wants the 3rd card on the far right, which is the tower, and the tower is about chaos and uncertainty.

Oh, we get to start with a non-NFL question.

wrestleman to 41. is it itena you in on this.

Where are you?

OK, say it one more time.

Wrestle me at 41.

I’ll be there April April 19th and 20th in Las Vegas.

I’m there.

Are we hanging out together?

I’m gonna be there too.

I cannot wait.

If you were a pro wrestler, would you have a permanent finishing move?

I know you’ve done this before, but would there be a permanent finisher or would you just bury it up?

Um, you know, if it was allowed, I think I would want to use the so called stunner as much as I could, but somewhere between there and an RKO would be my favorite.

And then just a little sprinkle of sweet chen music.

OK, I’m just going to be an old school guy.

I’m a macho man guy.

I kind of want to see you come off the rope, like the flying elbow drop like sort of thing, nobody’s done it in a long time.

I’m a big fan of the frog splash.

OK, yeah, so I could do something like that.

That could be pretty fun.

That’s like when you get into that situation, obviously like if you’re a big fan.

you watch the guys and get into it like what’s that like for you as a fan you’re so busy being a pro athlete.

What’s it like to just get to be a fan?

Oh, I absolutely love it.

There’s nothing like when you when you follow the story lines like throughout build up in the WrestleMania and stuff like that and then you know what’s going on throughout it and they’ve done such a good job with promos the last couple of years too.

You just really buy into it.

So I’m literally just watching like my favorite athletes perform and I have a great time and I’m also really pumped that Charlotte Flair’s back because she’s an absolute stallion.

The career is done, or we, uh, Triple H has my number.

Oh look at that.

I’m trying to make deals happen here.

Like, by the way, if you need like a mouth in the South, like a guy in a megaphone, I’m your guy.

I’m just a little guy you can throw around that will yell for you.

I’m in on it.

All right, so what do you got?

You get 3 cards.

What do you want to pick?

We’re here.

He goes far left and this card is the moon.

We got a little bit of gritty intuition dreams.

All right, let’s use intuition on the Super Bowl.

You know this Chiefs team do.

How do you beat them?

Beat their pressures on defense.

Spas is, you know, one thing we talked about when we played them was we thought it was the best defense that we were going to play the whole season, not just based off the defensive coordinator, but also based off a lot of those guys have been playing together for a long time and so they know each other.

They know where they’re going to be.

It’s a very, very sound defense, but the best thing about what Spaggs does is the way that he pressures stuff like all of a sudden it looks normal.

It looks like, hey, you have pressure from the and all of a sudden like 2 extra guys coming from the right and the whole left side of the D line just bails and like a spot drop coverage.

So there’s just so many things that they do creatively, but they’re so good at it because they’ve been doing it for so long.

So if you can beat that pressure and you can catch them in it and you can get the ball to your hot routes, I think that’s a success for the Eagles.

Do you think they can do that or will do that?

I think if Saquan runs the way he’s been running the last couple of weeks, I think they can kind of get them out of those pressures and they can just do a couple of dump offs outside of that.

You get them out of those pressures, you have a good chance.

How do the sequon runs impact the way Spaggs has to attack?

De football conversation.

It is a good one.

Well, a lot of the things with pressures too is guys are hitting gaps and like they have to be in certain gaps when they hit them.

And so if one guy.

Hits a gap and the D lineman goes in that same gap and all of a sudden there’s a hole right there.

Sequan is one of the few running backs that can take it 70 yards every single time, so there will be some caution, I think, from the Chiefs in regarding to Blitzingan.

Let’s throw 3 out and see where he goes this time.

Is there a pattern?

He goes far right with this one, comes back the sun.

All right.

That’s Tom Brady.

That’s a dashingly good looking Tom Brady on it, but it’s about.

He looks like the dude from Teletubbies, the sun.

Oh wow, I’m not gonna say that about Brady.

I tell you guys make your own decision on that one.

OK. Don’t hurt me.

A little bit, a little bit of positivity fun.

You, you’re wildly famous.

Who’s the most famous person in your phone?

Just, uh, in my opinion, besides, I have Triple A’s number, which is famous for me.

I just met Ken Griffey Junior in Nashville, Tennessee, and I got his number.

That was like one of the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me, you know, Nashville has come up a few times.

I lived there for a long time.

Uh, we were talking to Trey McBride earlier about, you know, tight end you in Nashville.

I told Trey like, hey, when you throw a party that Nashville actually freaks out about, that’s how you know it’s a good party.

But also, I’m just being honest, Trey was asked this or that which tight end is better, and he might have taken Kelsey over you.

anything you wanna say to Trey?

No, it’s all right, Trey.

He got hit a lot this year.

Oh God, that’s amazing.

I got nothing.

Trey told me to say hi.

I said I’m gonna tell him that you picked Kelsey, so you know I’m trying to create beef, although I shouldn’t.

I want to get an invite to tight in you next year.

All right.

Oh, come on, we just started right, go left.

Strength.

All right, strength is where he’s got it courage.

That’s bray bra bravery.

What’s, what’s tougher, the Super Bowl hangover or an actual hangover?

Oh.

Super Bowl hangover definitely that lasts longer than 24 hours I would say we talk at the beginning of the year.

I’m gonna be deep again.

We talked at the beginning of the year like when do you get over it?

How do you get over it?

How do you process it?

Do you feel like it was something that was on your mind at all this season?

During the season?

No, I’m good.

I think it definitely, it’s like something you think about a lot for probably a month, maybe.

I mean some guys are more than that.

I probably know people who still think about it all the all the time.

It’s like.

But I’ve gotten, you know, hey, take your time off, try to get your body healthy, and then really for me it was like when I started being able to train again is kind of when it’s like, all right, I have new goals for the season and I can kind of flush everything.

All right, we’ll throw more out.

Got 3 cards.

Where’s he going with this one?

He goes far right again.

He’s also doing a great job of moving the cards to me.

Nobody else has done that.

The magician, uh, and this is about power.

What is it about tight ends that have made them such a key to great offenses currently in the NFL?

Um, one, I think a lot of young quarterbacks that come to the league, your safety blankets obviously your tight end because they’re very reliable.

They catch basically everything you throw to them, and they’re also the closest to you, so it’s like the least dangerous throw.

Um, also, we always do what we’re supposed to do, which is a good thing.

So I think that’s one thing, but I would also say I think like this is like the last couple of years you can name almost every tight end like throughout the league on every single team.

Like the popularity of the Titans improving.

People know all the tight ends.

Titans be more involved with the offense.

There are a ton of guys this year over 600 yards, and I know like 6 or 7 years ago you had like 4 guys over 500 every single year, and now you have a ton.

So it’s kind of fun to see the tight end position grow and get more targets.

Who’s who’s the guy that you look at?

I know there’s a bunch of me you’re all friends.

Well, when you’re sitting down and you’re like, man, I just wanna watch greatness from somebody who stands out to you that that you, you find the most inspiration from watching.

Um, currently, I mean like everything that Travis does is phenomenal.

Um, and what I was blown away was everyone’s like, oh, Travis having a down year, he’s not doing well.

He finished with over 90 catches and like 850 yards.

Sure, like maybe like the yards for catch weren’t there, but like 90 catches is 90 catches.

I don’t care what you did.

I had 65 something like he had 90 catches.

He had a great season.

hit his touchdowns like he’s making the plays that he needs to make.

So like I love watching Travis.

I just like watching how he runs routes and hey, he has a basic on this route, but he’s going to run a 6 yard out instead because that’s where the zone’s telling him where to go sit.

So watching him do stuff is really fun.

Besides Travis, um.

I’m a huge fan of Dallas Goddard.

I really am.

And the only thing that the only reason Dallas has not been a national name to everybody right now is because he broke his arm last year and he had a weird hammy thing I think this year, so it’s like he’s a phenomenal football player and I think he’s going to have a ton of great players in the Super Bowl.

We’re going to have a ton of great pizza pizza.

Everybody, what you’re doing with Little Caesar repeats and repeats the pizza and the pizza pizza.

And so this is Little Caesars, you actually eat these too.

They’re phenomenal.

Oh my God.

These are crazy puffs.

Oh, this is the new one with bacon if you want to try that.

I mean, I’m on a, I’m on a fitness journey and I’m about to break it for this.

Oh my god.

They’re just delightful, like a little pizza bite.

So yeah, so it’s crazy because I’ve never had one of these until I was a pizza pizza athlete and.

They’re still so good.