San Francisco 49ers TE George Kittle suffered an Achilles tear in the team’s win over the Philadelphia Eagles in the Wild Card Round of the 2025 NFL playoffs. He missed the 49ers’ loss to the Seahawks in the next round and his status for the start of the 2026 regular season is up in the air.
But perhaps there’s reason for optimism. Matt Harmon and Justin Boone broke down the possibility of Kittle being ready for Week 1 on the latest episode of the Yahoo Fantasy Forecast.
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Now, to begin, Boone points out that by no means is he a doctor. But there was some potential positive news on Kittle’s Achilles tear. Because the injury was higher up on the Achilles, it is believed that Kittle could have an easier time recovering from the tear. Boone doesn’t go too deep into the specifics, though you can hear him out in the video above.
Had he sustained a worse Achilles tear that is further down toward the heel, Kittle would likely be out until around November, which would mean he’d miss most of the 2026 regular season.
Kittle talked about his injury and says that he could come back before November. We know the 32-year-old Pro Bowler is going to do everything in his power to return as quickly as possible. That said, Boone thinks it would be wise for the 49ers to not rush this process for a player who will turn 33 during the 2026 season.
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While it seems like a long shot still for Kittle to be ready for Week 1, this does seem like the tight end will be able to return and make a fantasy football impact at some point next season.
Boone doesn’t have Kittle in his early 2026 tight end rankings but is thinking he’ll have to put the San Fran star in there somewhere, possibly as a fringe-TE1. You can check out Boone’s TE rankings for 2026 here. For now, Boone does have 49ers backup TE Jake Tonges on the list as TE30, though that should change after the offseason.
Kittle finished the 2025 season as the TE11 in fantasy scoring and TE2 in fantasy points per game (12.8), though he only appeared in 11 games. In those games, Kittle had 57 catches on 69 targets for 628 yards and seven touchdowns.