© Brian Fluharty-USA TODAY Sports
Well, they’re in the right profession. After a bruising, 33-6 beatdown of the New England Patriots, tight end George Kittle and linebacker Fred Warner affirmed what we’d all known: football players are a bit off. And they have to be.
You cannot have 6’4″-plus, 250-pound men out there trying to kill you and not have at least a tinge of insanity fueling you. It’s the only sustainable method for a long NFL career. Become a deranged individual for three hours every Sunday (or Thursday, or Monday, or I guess, Tuesday, now) or get whooped. Those are the options, and you can’t half-commit.
Kittle described this state mania-by-design that football players put themselves into when asked about Jeff Wilson Jr., who seemed to almost intentionally run at and then through the New England Patriots on Sunday. Though he injured his ankle on his third touchdown run, Wilson finished with 112 yards and 3 touchdowns on 17 carries (6.6 yards per carry).
“Jeff Wilson goes to a dark place before every single game. It’s different than it is in practice,” Kittle said. “You can tell he’s angry. He packs it. He wants contact, he deals contact, he delivers pain. It’s awesome. You can just see it in his eyes, he’s a totally different person. The way he runs the thing, it’s crazy. So, I love being on the field with Jeff Wilson. The way he carries the football, the way he makes people like look at him after he’s tackled.
They’re like, ‘Why did it take four people to tackle that guy” And why are two guys on the ground from trying to tackle him?’ Because he’s an absolute monster. He has one of my favorite mindsets. He’s a completely different person on game day. And it’s just this dark place that he goes to, and I love everything about that.”
He looked like he was talking trash to opponents while initiating contact, displaying a certain type of beautiful football violence that deserves an exhibit in Canton, Ohio.
An example of this aesthetically-pleasing violence:
Jeff Wilson Jr. just ran over Devin McCourty. #49ers pic.twitter.com/vYXRrkwe01
— Cameron Salerno (@cameronsalerno1) October 25, 2020
That’s the reality, Kittle said. It’s a violent sport, necessitating a mindset to accommodate it.
He recalled the first time he saw that “dark place,” it was Pierre Garcon, who would punch himself in the head after first downs.
That mindset is encouraged by head coach Kyle Shanahan. Kittle, who makes himself vomit before every game while also getting a few head butts in, probably didn’t need much encouragement.
“Football is a violent sport, and if you don’t kind of go to that dark place to be violent and be physical, you’re not going to last very long and coach Shanahan always talks about, find the dark place,” Kittle said. “Everybody kind of goes to that dark place. Like I said, it’s a violent game, and it’s just it’s fun to be a part of a team with a bunch of psychopaths because I fit in really well here.”
Warner agreed with that assessment.
“Psychopaths is a great word to use,” Warner said. “We all for sure have a little something off. Kyle kind of talks about that where, when you got guys who have a little some off and then you go out there and just impose your will on your opponent, obviously you see the result.”