{"id":113522,"date":"2025-06-08T11:42:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-08T11:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/113522\/"},"modified":"2025-06-08T11:42:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-08T11:42:09","slug":"49ers-brock-purdy-george-kittle-relish-navy-seals-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/113522\/","title":{"rendered":"49ers’ Brock Purdy, George Kittle relish Navy SEALs visit"},"content":{"rendered":"

SANTA CLARA \u2013 Half of the 49ers\u2019 roster<\/a> is new. The team needed this offseason program<\/a> to achieve more than getting guys in shape and back on the field. They needed to form a reliable bond between the seasoned veterans and the hot-shot newcomers.<\/p>\n

And they needed Navy SEALs<\/a> to help.<\/p>\n

The 49ers spent a recent week submerged, so to speak, in SEALs training to transform them back into an elite, special operations force in the NFL \u2013 by air and land, but probably not the sea, all due respect to the Navy\u2019s historic unit.<\/p>\n

Activities aside, what the 49ers really tapped into was the benefit of communication, from hearing awe-inspiring stories from the SEALs to discovering heartfelt nuggets about their teammates\u2019 backgrounds.<\/p>\n

This 49ers regime, led by coach Kyle Shanahan and general manager John Lynch, has brought in SEALs training in the past. In 2018<\/a> that duo was doing sit-ups alongside players, and Jimmy Garoppolo was hollering \u201cOorah!\u201d while lugging a log with teammates. A decade ago<\/a>, 49ers alumni got to work alongside retired SEALs.<\/p>\n

Brock Purdy, like most current 49ers, had not been through that SEALs experience, and he relished it more than any other aspect of the offseason program, which wraps up with mandatory minicamp Tuesday and Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cHearing their stories and what it\u2019s like, being on a SEALs team unit and how that translates to us being a football team and doing stuff that\u2019s not ordinary, it was pretty special for me and eye-opening for sure,\u201d Purdy said.<\/p>\n

Tight end George Kittle, last year\u2019s recipient of the NFL and USAA\u2019s Salute to Service Award, obviously embraced the SEALs\u2019 stories and team-building exercises.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey talk about what the Navy SEALs standard is, how they uphold that, how they built that and how they wrote it,\u201d Kittle said. \u201cYou learn a lot of cool stuff from them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kittle found it \u201cabsolutely crazy\u201d to hear stories such as SEALs cramming into \u201clittle clear fishing boats that were supposed to hold like 200 pounds, (they) had five guys packed in them, fully packed and are going up a river in the middle of a day, and (they) somehow came back from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shanahan estimated this was the third time in his nine years that the 49ers have signaled for the SEALs to \u201cjust come in and give some classroom work. We do an activity, a kind of paintball-type thing, it wasn\u2019t paintballs though. It\u2019s just Navy SEALs stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Purdy marveled at the presentations and absorbed how meaningful it is to uphold a standard and culture among peers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe events and things that we did with each other were pretty cool,\u201d Purdy said, \u201cand the conversations that we\u2019ve all had because we\u2019re with guys that are on defense, talking about what it means to be a Niner and like what it takes. So, I think that was a pretty special moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adversity awaits every NFL season, every week, every day. And every 49ers player will take a different path \u2013 via a different background \u2013 to make the season-opening roster in three months.<\/p>\n

Thus, one resounding benefit of SEALs Week was to hear teammates share their experiences, from a subdued superstar like Christian McCaffrey to a free agent defensive back.<\/p>\n

\u201cMe and Fred talk a lot, but it\u2019s really good for the other guys on the team to have their voices heard,\u201d Kittle said. \u201cYou want leadership to come from everybody. That\u2019s one of the things the SEALs facilitate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Everybody showed up during the 49ers\u2019 voluntary phase of the offseason program, which started on April 22. The 11-man draft class joined in last month, showing Shanahan that \u201cwe\u2019ve got some workers. I know we\u2019ve got guys who really love football.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 49ers\u2019 bond will continue to grow through locker room hijinks, weight-lifting sessions, meeting-room instructions and unexpected twists in a challenging upcoming season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a special thing and a unique thing to be able to get guys that are new coming in and we\u2019ve got to roll together,\u201d Purdy added. \u201cWe got to go through some things together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SANTA CLARA \u2013 Half of the 49ers\u2019 roster is new. The team needed this offseason program to achieve…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113523,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2080],"tags":[220,2946,2947,1926,1443,7,1921,929,6,1161,252,2624,2623,7910,1929,1930,9],"class_list":{"0":"post-113522","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco-49ers","8":"tag-49ers","9":"tag-49ers-alert","10":"tag-49ers-hq","11":"tag-bay-area","12":"tag-california","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-inside-sports","15":"tag-latest-headlines","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-san-francisco","18":"tag-san-francisco-49ers","19":"tag-sanfrancisco","20":"tag-sanfrancisco49ers","21":"tag-santa-clara","22":"tag-santa-clara-county","23":"tag-south-bay","24":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114647567280523490","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}