The 49ers have been among the NFC’s best teams over the last few years, making it to the conference championship game in the last two seasons and the Super Bowl in 2019.
But for NFL clubs, there’s always a proverbial “window” of contention given the inherent structure of player contracts.
San Francisco is still expected to be one of the conference’s elite franchises in 2023. But one of the team’s veterans acknowledged that the Niners have to capitalize on the opportunity they have now.
“I think that’s something that our team is very aware of,” tight end George Kittle said, via David Bonilla of 49erswebzone.com. “We have a lot of highly-paid players on this team who have earned that money, and you can only pay so many guys. And we know that some of those guys are at the end of their contracts, the end of the guarantees, and that’s when things start to move.
“So yes, we’re very aware of that. I don’t think it’s something that, hey, we have a team meeting, or like, ‘Hey, this is it.’ But our vet guys, we understand that. It’s something we kind of talked about in OTAs. It’ll be mentioned throughout training camp. We’re aware of that.”
Kittle has been a significant part of the 49ers’ success when he’s been on the field. Last season, he caught 60 passes for 765 yards with a career-high and team-leading 11 touchdowns. But San Francisco’s offense features plenty of playmakers, like Deebo Samuel, Christian McCaffrey, and Brandon Aiyuk.
“We have a fantastic football team,” Kittle said. “We have a great core of guys at really important positions. We understand that the window, whatever that is, could be closing. We’re going to try our best just to keep that window open as long as we possibly can, but we’re going to try to sneak out some wins while that window is still open, according to everybody else.
“We need to win games. It’s on us. It’s on our amazing coaching staff. It’s on our amazing players. We have to go out there and win.”