Kittle reveals when he suffered core injury in 2023 season, discusses post-surgery recovery

The 49ers' star tight end played through pain last season. George Kittle, the 30-year-old All-Pro, dealt with a core muscle injury sustained in the middle of last season, and underwent surgery, as did Charvarius Ward.

He revealed Wednesday that the injury was suffered around Week 9 or 10.

"Week 9, 10, we took some MRIs of it and some stuff didn't show up," Kittle said. "So, we weren't really entirely sure what we were dealing with until I got the surgery. So that was a tough one. We tried to figure it out, but things weren't popping up on the scans, and so it's just something that we were playing through probably for like 10 weeks. It's fun stuff."

He said his goal is to be back for training camp, and said that "all signs point" to him being healthy by the time camp begins. Kittle added that he and Ward both saw the same surgeon for similar procedures.

"If you have to get surgery, I like to do a second, maybe a third opinion, talk to different people who are doing it and we ended up both going to the same guy and he had great success for it," Kittle said. "And so I went and did the same thing. It was a little different surgery. There are some similarities, but they had to reattach something differently for me than they did to him. So it's a little different, but overall, you know, I think we're both progressing at a good rate."

Kittle is no stranger to playing hurt, and despite the injury, he had 65 catches for 1,020 yards and 6 touchdowns. The soon-to-be 31-year-old is entering the penultimate year of a five-year, $75 million extension he signed in 2020.