George Kittle is back on the NFL’s Top 100 list — again. The 49ers tight end checked in at No. 46 on the NFL Network’s Top 100 Players of 2026 reveal, marking his eighth consecutive appearance on the annual, player-voted ranking.
The number is a jump from where Kittle sat a year ago. He ranked No. 31 on the 2025 list. This time he moved up 15 spots, even after a season limited by injury.
A Down Year by Kittle’s Standards, Still Elite Production
Entering his 10th NFL season, Kittle is coming off a 2025 campaign that ended early. According to Bleacher Report, Kittle suffered a torn Achilles in San Francisco’s playoff win over the Philadelphia Eagles in January, an injury that now shadows his outlook entering his age-33 season.
Even so, the numbers he put up before that point stayed strong. Kittle appeared in 11 games in 2025, hauling in 57 receptions for 628 yards and seven touchdowns, per the 49ers’ own reporting. A hamstring injury cut into his availability for part of the year, but he still tied for fifth among all tight ends in touchdown catches. He finished second on the Niners in receptions and third in receiving yards. His catch rate sat at 85.3 percent, which Bleacher Report notes ranked fourth among all tight ends last season, citing Pro Football Focus’ Thomas Valentine.
No. 46 on the NFL Top 100 Players of 2026…@49ers TE George Kittle! @NFLFilms pic.twitter.com/WzzMfGAvf7
— NFL (@NFL) July 29, 2026
Zoom out and the career totals do the talking. Over nine seasons, Kittle has racked up seven Pro Bowl selections and five Associated Press All-Pro honors, including two First-Team nods. He’s caught 595 passes for 8,008 yards and 52 touchdowns.
Teammates Rally Behind the Ranking
The NFL’s reveal came paired with reaction from Kittle’s locker room, and left tackle Trent Williams didn’t hold back. “Come on, man, you know. George is the best tight end in football,” Williams said, according to Heavy.com. “There’s no doubt about it, and there’s nothing he can’t do… He’s literally Superman on the field. Lightning in a bottle.”
That kind of praise tracks with how Kittle has operated in San Francisco since he arrived. He’s never been just a possession target. Kyle Shanahan’s offense leans on him as a run blocker first, and Kittle sets the edge as hard as anybody at his position in the league. The receiving numbers are almost a bonus on top of that.
Not everyone bought the No. 46 slot, either. Fan reaction split, with some arguing the ranking undersells him given the missed time was injury-driven rather than a decline in play. That kind of pushback is standard for a list voted on by current players trying to weigh a shortened season against a full body of work.
Where Kittle Stands Among 49ers on the List
Kittle isn’t the only Niner showing up early in this year’s reveal. Linebacker Fred Warner landed at No. 54, and quarterback Brock Purdy checked in at No. 85, according to 49ers.com.
| Player | 2026 Rank | 2025 Rank |
|---|---|---|
| George Kittle | No. 46 | No. 31 |
| Fred Warner | No. 54 | No. 16 |
| Brock Purdy | No. 85 | — |
The Top 100 rollout is a monthlong event by design. NFL Films produces the series, and the league is revealing two players per weekday at 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. PT through Aug. 21, before switching to one Top 10 reveal per day starting Aug. 24. The list itself dates back to 2011 and is determined entirely by a vote of current players grading their peers on the previous season’s body of work.
What It Means Heading Into Camp
The Achilles injury is the variable nobody can fully answer yet. Kittle’s teammates were on record this offseason discussing where the offense stands heading into 2026, and the 49ers have already moved to diversify the pass-catching group around him — the team drafted Ricky Pearsall in the first round in 2024 and signed Mike Evans in free agency this offseason.
None of that changes what Kittle represents to Shanahan’s scheme when healthy. His blocking is what allows San Francisco to run the zone-stretch concepts that set up the entire play-action passing attack. Losing him for any stretch changes how defenses can play the run, not just how the receiving stats look on a spreadsheet.
For now, the ranking stands as one data point in a much larger story: how Kittle looks once training camp reps start piling up, and whether the Achilles recovery holds up through a full season.
