{"id":201403,"date":"2025-07-12T12:50:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-12T12:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/201403\/"},"modified":"2025-07-12T12:50:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-12T12:50:10","slug":"49ers-kyle-juszczyk-happily-golfing-in-tahoe-after-emotional-offseason-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/201403\/","title":{"rendered":"49ers’ Kyle Juszczyk happily golfing in Tahoe after emotional offseason"},"content":{"rendered":"

STATELINE, Nev. \u2013 Kyle Juszczyk<\/a> knows he soon will have an outlet for any frustrations, such as a three-putt bogey on the 18th hole at Edgewood Tahoe Golf Course in Friday\u2019s opening round of the American Century Championship celebrity golf tournament.<\/p>\n

Juszczyk and his 49ers teammates are two weeks away from putting on helmets and shoulder pads at training camp, for their first live contact since last season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s way easier than this,\u201d Juszczyk said of his football duties as he walked off the 18th green. \u201cI\u2019m looking forward to it. It\u2019s been a long offseason.\u201d<\/p>\n

How long was it?<\/p>\n

For Juszcyzk, one stretch of it tormented him. He got released at the onset of free agency in March<\/a>, visited the Pittsburgh Steelers, and ultimately agreed to return to the 49ers on a two-year contract<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the worst three days of my life,\u201d Juszczyk said, \u201cbut I genuinely am grateful for it now. It gave me so much perspective to kind of step back and see how good I had it, and then get the chance to come back to it. So few people have that opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Juszczyk, a nine-time Pro Bowl fullback, joined the 49ers in 2017 and still considers himself the longest-tenured player on their current roster, his brief free agency be damned.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe jokingly called it like a living funeral,\u201d Juszczyk said. \u201cI got all my goodbye texts \u2013 \u201cHow much we love and appreciated you\u201d \u2014\u00a0 but then I got to come back. So I got to feel that love from everybody. And I\u2019m locked up for two years. I don\u2019t have to deal with this next year and I\u2019m thankful for it now that it\u2019s over.\u201d<\/p>\n

Juszczyk came away with no points in Friday\u2019s opening round (eight pars, six bogeys, four double bogeys). He tees off the back nine Saturday at 9:32 a.m. with 49ers cohort George Kittle and Stanford product Justin Reid of the New Orleans Saints.<\/p>\n

Juszczyk tied for 64th in last year\u2019s tournament debut, before the 49ers\u2019 NFC title defense came to a crashing halt with a 6-11, last-place record.<\/p>\n

Although Juszczyk returns to the 49ers, over 20 players left in free agency, including eight starters.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, change is a good thing. We weren\u2019t too good last year,\u201d Juszczyk said. \u201cWe have a good combination of change but you also have your centerpieces.\u201d<\/p>\n

That includes a slew of team captains from past years: George Kittle, Fred Warner, Nick Bosa, Brock Purdy, Christian McCaffrey and Trent Williams.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll blend in with a slew of newcomers, especially on defense where the 49ers used their first five draft picks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s good to inject some new blood in there,\u201d Juszczyk said. \u201cIt is kind of a young man\u2019s league, so you need some young guys to come in and make contributions. That\u2019s a big role for us this year, is bringing those guys along quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

That said, blocking for a refreshed McCaffrey could be the key to the 49ers\u2019 direction.<\/p>\n

\u201cChristian is arguably the best player in the NFL. He was the offensive player of the year two years ago,\u201d Juszczyk said. \u201cHe changes everything, and he looks incredible. He looks so healthy, he looks so explosive. It changes everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Changing uniforms wasn\u2019t in the cards for Juszczyk, who said he \u201cgenuinely enjoyed\u201d his visit with the Steelers. \u201cBut at the end of the day, it just wasn\u2019t enough to trump what I had in San Francisco,\u201d Juszczyk said. \u201cI just couldn\u2019t pull the plug.<\/p>\n

\u201cI literally know everyone. I know the chefs, the custodians, the PR team, the community team. I know all the players. It\u2019s just a familiarity,\u201d Juszczyk added. \u201cMy home is there. We bought a house back in 2017, and that\u2019s home. And to be in California, to be on what I think is a really good team, a team that I think has a really great opportunity this year. So there\u2019s too many good things to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATELINE, Nev. \u2013 Kyle Juszczyk knows he soon will have an outlet for any frustrations, such as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2080],"tags":[220,2947,7,8085,1921,41909,929,6,1161,252,2624,2623,9],"class_list":{"0":"post-201403","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-hq","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-golf","12":"tag-inside-sports","13":"tag-lake-tahoe","14":"tag-latest-headlines","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-san-francisco","17":"tag-san-francisco-49ers","18":"tag-sanfrancisco","19":"tag-sanfrancisco49ers","20":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114840353267705012","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201403","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=201403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}