Brock Purdy<\/a> for the winning TD in the 2025 opener. Last season accounted for the first 34 catches and 293 yards of his career, spanning his four years in the league. It was a long time coming. For an overachiever like Tonges, there was no guarantee it would ever come.<\/p>\n\u201cThat first year is, I think, the hardest year to kind of stick around because you have so many undrafted guys come in,\u201d Tonges said. \u201cI was in Chicago, we must\u2019ve had like 10 or 15 guys come in, and I think there was like two or three who made the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
A rookie Tonges made it past cuts that August, in 2022, only to be waived twice over the course of the next 12 months. He found a home on the 49ers practice squad in 2023, carved out a special teams role for himself by 2024, and as recently as the 2025 was on the field for a two-minute drill in a preseason game against the Las Vegas Raiders. The memory was still fresh in his head.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that was Jake Moody\u2019s field goal,\u201d Tonges said, asked about setting up the walk-off-winning kick by Eddy Pi\u00f1eiro, who was not yet on the team.<\/p>\n
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It\u2019s why Thursday\u2019s preseason opener, a game in which he did not play a single snap, was a \u201cfull-circle moment\u201d for Tonges. His place on the roster\u00a0\u2014 and even the depth chart\u00a0\u2014 is not in question.<\/p>\n
Kittle continues to rehab with a goal of returning from his torn Achilles tendon by Week 1, an ambitious goal. In his absence, Tonges and Luke Farrell present complementary skill sets. The 49ers run a lot of 22-personnel formations, or in other words, sets with two tight ends. On paper, Tonges is a prototypical receiving tight end and Farrell is known for his blocking.<\/p>\n
First-year tight ends coach Cam Clemmons has tried to help them out of those boxes. Clemmons, previously an assistant offensive line coach for the 49ers, has been especially helpful to Tonges.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s been my challenge to him, is, Jake, your ceiling isn\u2019t last year,\u201d Clemmons said. \u201cLast year was just kind of the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whatever happens from here, any Tonges highlight reel should probably start with Sept. 7, 2025. He entered that game with one NFL target. He exited with three more, including as many catches all on the same drive, the last of which came with 1:34 remaining in the game and saved Purdy from an interception and the 49ers from a loss.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cI wasn\u2019t sure if he was throwing it away,\u201d said Tonges, who at 6-foot-4 skied over 6-foot-4 cornerback Tariq Woolen to secure the touchdown.<\/p>\n
Not bad for a finance bro.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Niners tight end Jake Tonges turns to run upfield after a reception during a game against the Arizona…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":974482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2080],"tags":[220,7,9509,6,1161,252,2624,2623,9],"class_list":["post-974481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco-49ers","tag-49ers","tag-football","tag-jake-tonges","tag-nfl","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-49ers","tag-sanfrancisco","tag-sanfrancisco49ers","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117103653279296235","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974481","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=974481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/974482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=974481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=974481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=974481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}