The 2024 season for the San Francisco 49ers was disastrous in every sense. The team came off an overtime loss in the Super Bowl to the Kansas City Chiefs, a result that practically marked the end of a cycle that promised a lot but fell just short on four different occasions, including two Super Bowl appearances.
Failing to replicate a successful season last year made the departure of several veteran players inevitable, raising questions about whether the team’s Super Bowl window had closed. However, while many players left, pillars like George Kittle remained, and the tight end doesn’t believe the window is closed, even joking about that claim.
George Kittle Is Embracing the Underdog Story of the 49ers in 2025
The 49ers’ offseason was tough but necessary. There was a negative cloud of failure hanging over the franchise that needed to be cleared, leading San Francisco to move on from several veteran players, many of them key starters when healthy, like Dre Greenlaw, Deebo Samuel, and Talanoa Hufanga, along with others important to the team’s depth.
Naturally, with this mini-rebuild underway, many began questioning whether the 49ers’ Super Bowl window, the period where a roster is strong enough to seriously compete for a championship, had officially closed. However, Kittle sees things differently and is very straightforward about what he thinks of those claims regarding his team.
“The thing about windows is you can just throw a chair through and break it open. Just grab a chair throw it through there, you know, we’re just gonna rebuild it we’ll make a new window, cut it out. That works for me. You know, doors, windows, I don’t care kick them in, baby,” Kittle said.
Something similar happened to the Philadelphia Eagles two seasons ago. In the year following their Super Bowl loss, the franchise saw both of its coordinators leave. Despite a strong start, their season quickly fell apart after a blowout loss to the 49ers. That offseason, the Eagles once again replaced both coordinators, and it left a sense that their competitive window had slipped away.
But the outcome was the exact opposite. The team bounced back from the trauma of losing the Super Bowl, made key additions, and returned to the big final the following year, this time more prepared, ultimately winning the title. Not being the center of attention across the league might actually play in the 49ers’ favor in 2025, and Kittle knows that.
“The Vikings are a pretty damn good football team, you know, Justin Jefferson, decent… They got they got our running back JP Mason, they got our defensive tackle Javon Hargrave and they’re already pretty good besides that. So I was like ‘You guys have an opportunity to be pretty special this year.’ So I’m just gonna try to get everyone to talk about the Vikings, Eagles and the Rams and then we’re just gonna let us be underdogs”.
The 49ers are projected to finish the season with a 10-7 record, barely missing the playoffs. There is some skepticism about whether the team can overcome so many key departures at once by relying on rookies and the veterans who remained.
However, with Robert Saleh returning to lead the defense and a much smoother offseason in terms of contract extensions, it is reasonable to view the 49ers as a sleeper team for the upcoming season.
