Baker Machado of Front Office Sports<\/a>, Kittle said: \u201cHey, that\u2019s the goal. That\u2019s what my goal is. I was told it\u2019s not a crazy goal. And so, as long as I keep on the right path and everything goes the right way, hey, I got a chance.<\/p>\n\u201cAs a 15-hour flight and a game like four days before a normal opening day, that might make it a little bit difficult\u2014sure, but who doesn\u2019t like a challenge? So, no, I\u2019ve got a chance, like I said, so just going to keep my head down, keep grinding every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kittle is of course referring to the fact that the 49ers\u2019 season opener takes place in Melbourne, Australia, as they face the Los Angeles Rams at the famous Melbourne Cricket Ground in the first NFL game to be played Down Under.<\/p>\n
Head coach Kyle Shanahan has made no attempt hide his disdain for the extra travel the 49ers have on their plate this season, which could well hinder Kittle\u2019s bid to step onto the field Week 1 at the MCG.<\/p>\n
The 49ers\u2019 plan to land in Australia a week before the game may help Kittle if he is close to being ready but, regardless of what happens with his efforts to make the season opener, the seven-time Pro Bowler is determined to prove the doubters wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt least, if we started the season off at home, and I didn\u2019t have to hop on a plane for 15 hours, it might be different,\u201d Kittle added. \u201cBut I think it just depends on how I\u2019m feeling, if I\u2019m cleared to go. If I\u2019m cleared, hey, I\u2019ll be there, and I\u2019ll be on the field. And if they\u2019re like, \u2018Hey, it\u2019s close,\u2019 it\u2019ll be a game-time decision. So, we\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody keeps telling me I won\u2019t be back until Week 6, 7, or 8, and I\u2019ll be like, \u2018You guys believe whatever you want to believe.\u2019 My goal is to be back there as early as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Kittle knows his target of being ready for Week 1 of the 2026 NFL season is ambitious.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":903926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,6,52067,1137],"class_list":["post-903925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-san-francisco-49ers-roster","tag-san-francisco-49ers-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116654903350608916","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903925","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=903925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/903926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=903925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=903925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=903925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}