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(Photo by Norm Hall/Getty Images)
Despite their mountain of injury issues this season, the San Francisco 49ers find themselves within reach of an NFC West title and the No. 1 overall seed in the NFC heading into week 18. The Niners are hosting the Seattle Seahawks on Saturday, Jan. 3, the winner of which will claim both of those honors.
Ingrained within San Francisco’s injury struggles has been tight end George Kittle, who missed five games in September and early October. Kittle re-entered the lineup and had played every game after that stint on the bench, but he missed week 17’s game against Chicago with a sprained ankle.
Fortunately for the Niners, it looks like Kittle will be back on the field this week. San Francisco President of Football Operations John Lynch claimed in an interview that he would be “very surprised” if the veteran tight end misses this week’s game against Seattle.
Kittle has had another very productive season with the 49ers, catching 52 passes for 599 yards through 10 games. He remains one of Brock Purdy’s favorite red-zone targets, as he has seven touchdown receptions. He is also, of course, one of the best pass protecting tight ends in the NFL.
Kittle Expected to Suit Up in Massive Game
Heading into the biggest game of the season, the 49ers are riding a six game winning streak, the best of the bunch coming last week when they won a shootout thriller over the Chicago Bears, 42-38.
Both San Fran and Seattle surprised a lot of people this season, especially after the Los Angeles Rams got out to a 9-2 start and were playing like the best team in the league. Most would’ve predicted that the NFC West was the Rams division to lose after 12 weeks of the NFL season.
But it’s been coaching masterclasses in both San Francisco and Seattle, as Kyle Shanahan and Mike Macdonald have made compelling cases for Coach of the Year. Shanahan led a Mac Jones led team to a modest 5-4 record before Brock Purdy came back and began to light up the stat sheet. The offensive guru has taken Jones and Purdy and squeezed every last drop out of them, as the two have a combined 33 touchdown passes and a passer rating of over 100.
Meanwhile for the Seahawks, Macdonald has made Sam Darnold look like the No. 3 overall pick that had so much promise nearly eight years ago in New York. With at least 150 yards this weekend Darnold will eclipse 4,000 passing yards for the second time in his career.
It does help when Darnold is throwing to the guy who will win Offensive Player of the Year in Jaxon Smith-Njigba.
Seeding Scenarios For San Francisco
Here are all of the possibilities for the 49ers heading into this heavyweight matchup against the Seahawks:
If San Francisco wins, it clinches the NFC West title and the No. 1 overall seed in the NFC, a first round bye.
If Seattle wins AND the Los Angeles Rams win against the Arizona Cardinals, the 49ers drop to the No. 6 seed. If LA loses to Arizona, the Niners will take the No. 5 seed.
All the 49ers need is a win and they’ll have a chance to let Kittle and all the other injured players take an extra week to recover before entering the playoff gauntlet.
Matt Skillings Matt Skillings is a Boston based sports journalist and a graduate of UMass Amherst, where he majored in journalism and communication. Matt covered the UMass men’s ice hockey team for three years for the Massachusetts Daily Collegian. He was also a media intern for the Harwich Mariners of the Cape Cod Baseball League for two summers. Matt has additional bylines with the New England Hockey Journal, the Boston Globe and MassLive. More about Matt Skillings
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