![\"George](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/george-kittle-san-francisco-49ers.jpg\")
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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGetty\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
(Photo by Alex Slitz\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
The San Francisco 49ers<\/a> will be heading abroad next season to face their NFC West rival, the Los Angeles Rams<\/a>, in Melbourne, Australia, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). <\/p>\n Currently, the date and time are still to be announced. However, the game, organized in partnership with the Victorian State Government and Visit Victoria, will be one of a record nine international NFL<\/a> games planned for 2026.<\/p>\n On Feb. 6, George Kittle shared his thoughts on being the first team to play an NFL game in Australia during an appearance on the \u201cPat McAfee Show.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve only done one international game, that was Mexico City, so not that hard of a flight,\u201d Kittle said. \u201cThat was pretty fun too because that was basically a home game for us because Mexico City loves the 49ers. Sure, it\u2019ll be a great time, though. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m looking forward to it. I\u2019ve never been. I\u2019m excited for the 16\u2011hour flight from San Francisco. It\u2019s going to be great. Me and Christian McCaffrey will be sitting right next to each other for the whole flight, and I\u2019m probably going to annoy him the entire time.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Fred Warner Doesn\u2019t Hold back on Raheem Morris<\/p>\n On this trip, the 49ers will have a new defensive coordinator in Raheem Morris. With Morris ready to take over for Robert Saleh, who left for the Tennessee Titans<\/a> head coach job. Saleh did what he could with the unit after injuries devastated the group. <\/p>\n As a result, Morris should have a healthy Nick Bosa and\u00a0Mykel Williams<\/a>, along with any new additions on defense.\u00a0Moreover, he will\u00a0also\u00a0have\u00a0Fred Warner<\/a>\u00a0ready to go next season\u00a0too.<\/p>\n Warner spoke with NBC Sports Bay Area<\/a>\u00a0and shared his thoughts on his new defensive coordinator.<\/p>\n \u201cThat we\u2019re ready to work, man,\u201d Warner said on Feb. 3. \u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0not a bunch of guys who are set in their ways at all.\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0going into year nine, and\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0ready to learn and adapt to whatever\u00a0he\u2019s\u00a0giving to\u00a0us.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSo,\u00a0we\u2019re\u00a0all ready to work,\u00a0we\u2019re\u00a0all hungry to get back to being dominant and give ourselves a chance to win a Super Bowl.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n 49ers Defense Ready to Step Up in 2026<\/p>\n Furthermore, the 49ers\u2019 defense featured young players who needed to step into prominent roles this season. As a result, the injuries were a blessing in disguise for their development. <\/p>\n Now, heading into the 2026 season, Warner explained how the entire group can move forward and hopefully have a healthy campaign.<\/p>\n \u201cUltimately, it\u2019s just demanding excellence\u00a0of\u00a0your group every single day,\u201d Warner added. \u201cYou\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0let\u00a0little things\u00a0slide when it comes to just the details of how to play defense day-to-day. It truly is just demanding the best.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIf\u00a0you\u2019re\u00a0a player, you should want the best of yourself to be one of the best in the league\u00a0at\u00a0your position. And if\u00a0everybody\u2019s\u00a0doing that,\u00a0everybody\u2019s\u00a0holding each other accountable\u2026 and you do that every single day, you look up and\u00a0you\u2019re\u00a0like, \u2018OK, man, we did it.\u2019 I think\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0what it is\u00a0ultimately going\u00a0to take.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tEduardo Razo<\/a> Eduardo Razo is a sports writer for Heavy.com, covering the NFL, MLB, and college football. He has previously covered the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB for NBC Sports Washington and NBC Sports Bay Area & California, and has freelanced for PSG Talk, covering Paris Saint-Germain. He also worked as an editor at Athlon Sports, focusing on MLB and the NFL. More about Eduardo Razo<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tMore Heavy on 49ers\n\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\tLoading more stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty (Photo by Alex Slitz\/Getty Images) The San Francisco 49ers will be heading abroad next season to face…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2080],"tags":[220,7,6,1161,252,2624,2623],"class_list":{"0":"post-734514","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-football","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-san-francisco","12":"tag-san-francisco-49ers","13":"tag-sanfrancisco","14":"tag-sanfrancisco49ers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116026450799989822","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734514","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=734514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}