“Howdy!” George Kittle says as he steps onto the podium on Nov. 24 in Green Bay, Wisc.

It’s how he begins every news conference, and this time he seems disappointed when no one says howdy back.

But it doesn’t seem like a howdy type of moment. The San Francisco 49ers have just lost 38-10 to the Packers, which has been interpreted as the death blow to their season. Everyone else is gloomy. Fred Warner calls the game “probably the worst I’ve been a part of.” Deebo Samuel Sr. doesn’t even talk to reporters afterward. The day is cold, the mood funereal.

Except for Kittle. In a game full of lousy statistics, he finishes with 82 receiving yards and the team’s only touchdown. And afterward, the irrepressible tight end refuses to give in to the gathering darkness.

“No, why would it?” Kittle said when asked if the awful outing erodes his optimism about making the playoffs. “It’s definitely an uphill grind. But we get to see what we’re made of. And I’m looking forward to that.”

The season has followed a similar script. The 49ers’ 2024 campaign will be known as one in which their stars, so radiant the year prior, were obscured by thick, unrelenting clouds. The exception again is Kittle, who at 31 is their oldest offensive weapon but leads them in receiving yards and touchdowns. With three games to go, he ranks third among NFL tight ends in receiving yards and is poised to surpass 1,000 yards for the second straight year and the fourth time in his career.

Longtime friend Trent Taylor thinks Kittle’s mentality — no one in the NFL is having a better time than Kittle — is tied to his success. There’s power in all those howdys.

“While he’s out here working his tail off, he also knows how to have fun with it,” Taylor, a 49ers receiver, said. “And the guys who don’t know how to have fun with it, those are the guys who burn out. I think that’s why he’s been so good for such a long time.”

The George Kittle who arrived at 49ers headquarters along with Taylor in 2017 — both were fifth-round picks — looked nothing like today’s version.

“I was fatter,” noted Kittle, who today weighs 243 pounds but had risen as high as 265. “In college they told me I had to weigh a lot more. I drank eight protein shakes a day. Don’t ever do that.”

He also had close-cropped hair, no facial hair and no visible tattoos. Today, he’s bearded and his blond hair is long. He dramatically whips his head back to get it out of his face before putting on his helmet.

And there’s ink everywhere.

Kittle explains he has a good-guy arm and a bad-guy arm and then ticks off each tat. The right arm and hand include Hobbes, the fun-loving tiger from the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, Master Chief, the stoic protagonist in the Halo video games, and Godzilla.

“Godzilla’s a good guy,” he insisted.

The bad-guy arm includes Venom and the Joker, a tattoo he got on the eve of his 2019 wedding (to the chagrin of then-fiancee, Claire) and is a persona Kittle often adopts on game days.

“His dark place is the Joker mentality — where he’s giggling out there and kind of making light of everything,” Taylor said. “When George is out there goofing off, that’s when he’s ready to go to war.”

And he’s just getting started. Kittle says he’s planning a three-headed tattoo for the bad-guy arm, then launches into a two-minute explanation of what he’s contemplating. He’s like a 6-year-old going over his Christmas list. One head might be Sauron, the ultimate bad guy in “Lord of the Rings.” Sauron has always been a personal favorite. Another might be a dark figure from a cartoon called “Samurai Jack.” And the third?

“Have you ever seen the movie ‘Puss in Boots’?” he asks. “The second one, ‘The Last Wish’? It’s fantastic — significantly better than the first. Huge fan of it. There’s a character in the second one. And it’s a gray wolf and he’s known as Death. And he’s coming for Puss in Boots. And his character in the movie — it’s just fantastic.”

(Courtesy of San Francisco 49ers)

What 31-year-old professional football player gets giddy over a Puss in Boots tattoo?

For a glimpse of what’s swirling inside Kittle’s ever-active mind — and to figure out the origin of his tattoos — you have to go to the 335-acre farm in Lockridge, Iowa, where he grew up.

Calvin and Hobbes, the blond kid and tiger who go on all sorts of adventures together? That sounds an awful lot like Kittle and his sister, Emma, who is three years older.

Their dad, Bruce, would read to them every night before bed. And it wasn’t “The Hungry Caterpillar.” Instead, he’d pick up “Lord of the Rings,” even when George was really little, lighting up his boyhood brain with stories of giant spiders, great falls into the abyss and taking on armies of blood-thirsty orcs.

“My dad had a great story-telling voice,” George said. “He could change his voice enough to where 4-year-old me thought he was watching a movie. I loved it.”

The next day, the kids would live out the adventures — leaping off bales of hay, chasing rabbits and sidestepping the snakes and spiders that lived in the old barn. Emma said it was as if she and her brother grew up in a different time.

“Growing up on a farm with horses — when you think about ‘Lord of the Rings’ and those stories and the Riders of Rohan? They’re on horseback,” she said. “There was just so much relatability where we felt like we could be one of the nine on these quests. For us, the magic of the storybooks felt very real.”

George Kittle’s imagination came to life on his family farm in Iowa with his sister, Emma, and cousin Henry Krieger, who later played football at Iowa with George and had a brief NFL career. (Courtesy of Jan Kreiger)

The farm was a place where the kids’ imaginations could run wild and where they could test themselves.

Emma remembered an episode when George was 8 and was helping with a young pony named Jack. The ponies had a mean streak and were particularly nasty that day. Emma and their mom, Jan Krieger, watched the scene unfold.

“Jack kicked up and just about smoked George right in the face,” she recalled. “I think he might have clipped his shoulder a little bit. And it scared us really bad and it was like, ‘Get him out of the ring!’”

George, who was all wobbly legs and elbows at the time, didn’t let Jack be the lord of the ring that day.

“You could see the rage bubbling up,” Emma said. “And he went in there to show him who’s boss. He didn’t say that, but he flung the gate open, marched in, grabbed the harness and told Jack, ‘We’re not going to be that way.’ I just remember Mom and I were freaking out.”

There were other books — the “Harry Potter” series, for instance — mixed in, but “Lord of the Rings” was the go-to, the one that stuck. Bruce thinks he probably read the trilogy aloud three times, nearly 1.5 million words total.

“By the third time, George was like, ‘Dad, skip ahead to the battle of Helm’s Deep!’” he said.

The bedtime stories sparked George’s love of books. He listens to audio versions to and from work and always has a stack — Sherlock Holmes mysteries, crime thrillers and especially sci-fi and adventure series — on his bedside table. “Lord of the Rings” also frames how he sees life and certainly how he views an NFL season, which also revolves around a powerful ring. It’s no wonder Kittle is the NFL’s biggest character. He sees himself as a character in a 17-chapter adventure tale.

But which one? Who was his favorite growing up?

“I should say Smeagol just to mess with him and give you a dark article,” Emma said with a laugh.

She and Bruce agreed that Aragorn, the virtuous leader played in the film series by Viggo Mortensen and also known as Strider in the books, probably was George’s favorite and a role model.

“But,” Bruce said, “it’s hard not to be in the camp of the Hobbits, too. Because so many people discount them because they’re smaller.”

Bruce, a former Iowa offensive lineman who coached George when he was little, noted his son was “super gangly” as a boy.

“There was a long time when he looked like a baby deer,” he said. “You know, a lot of legs.”

George Kittle and his older sister, Emma, developed a love for books thanks to the nightly readings from their father, Bruce. (Courtesy of Jan Kreiger)

And no one thought George was anything special coming out of Iowa, either. The 49ers only caught onto him after zeroing in on his buddy, Hawkeye quarterback C.J. Beathard, whom they drafted in the third round.

“George being a later-round draft choice — I think there was a little bit of Hobbitt-esque leaning,” Bruce said. “Like, ‘I’ve got a lot more power and gifts than you might imagine.’”

George conceded that those guesses are correct.

“I mean, Strider’s hard to beat,” he said.

But he added he also has an appreciation for Sauron, the all-seeing antagonist, and for bad guys in general. It’s why he has so many bad-guy tattoos, which he uses to channel dark energy on game days. After all, sweet, whimsical, hilarious Hobbes — who’s an excellent approximation of every-day-life George — isn’t the ideal persona when your job is cutting down 235-pound linebackers on run plays.

“It’s not all the time,” George said. “But there are times when you want it to be a little bit of chaos and laugh at life like the Joker, and there are times when you need to be as serious as possible and do things to get the job done like Master Chief. There’s also time to breathe fire like Godzilla. There’s certain energy I can pull from these things. I like seeing them and I just kind of channel it when I look at them.”

Taylor admits he used to think it was strange when he would cross paths with Kittle before games and the tight end would be muttering to himself as he morphed into one of his Sunday characters. Then he realized everyone was going through their own transformations.

“Everyone’s doing this weird stuff before the game,” Taylor said. “And it’s like, ‘Who am I to judge?’ We’ve all got to be a little bit crazy to play this game of football.”

The tale of Aragorn, Frodo and Sam also lends itself well to what the 49ers are going through now. The trilogy is about faith and sacrifice, grittiness and resilience and maintaining the course even in the face of overwhelming odds. It’s also heavy in veneration for those who fought before you.

“It means showing up even when you’re (6-8) and it’s not looking great,” Bruce said. “Because the game knows. You don’t want to create bad football karma.”

Which was why there was a tense “howdy” when George took the podium after their most recent game. The 12-6 loss to the Los Angeles Rams all but eliminated the 49ers from the playoffs and, on top of that, it was marked by a teammate, De’Vondre Campbell Sr., quitting midway through the contest.

George Kittle, normally so chipper during post-game press conferences, was anything but following De’Vondre Campbell’s unexpected exit Thursday. Look who Kittle was wearing/channeling…

[image or embed]

— Matt Barrows (@mattbarrows.bsky.social) December 15, 2024 at 10:25 AM

With no Sauron on his arm — yet — Kittle wore the “Lord of Rings” baddie on the front of his T-shirt instead, then channeled some rarely seen postgame energy.

“Whatever his decision was, it wasn’t for this organization, it wasn’t for this team,” Kittle said. “And that’s on him. I’m not very happy about it. I wish I would’ve heard about it on the field, but I didn’t.”

This year, the path seems blocked for Kittle and his companions. They’re two games back in the division with no edge in tiebreakers. It’s very unlikely they will finally find the magical ring this season.

But while it might be the end of this particular book, the Kittles are certain there’s more to the story. And they know the darkness will only make the light seem that much brighter. That is, it’s no time to be glum.

“It’s a beautiful, beautiful ride,” Bruce said. “Yes, it’s tumultuous, but what avenue of life isn’t? So quit moping and go f—ing do it.”

(Top illustration: Dan Goldfarb: The Athletic; photos: Michael Owens and Brooke Sutton / Getty Images)

It was the sort of game where the goals were fairly simple.

Escape the upset and avoid injuries while improving as much as possible against a severely overmatched opponent.

UCLA succeeded on most fronts Tuesday night.

The No. 18 Bruins’ 111-75 victory over Prairie View A&M was so comfortable that UCLA coach Mick Cronin could substitute freely and used just a sprinkling of his trademark quick hooks after mistakes.

There wasn’t much to complain about except some defensive slippage and a few sloppy stretches in a game with little intrigue. After reserve guard Dominick Harris entered the game with only a few minutes left and quickly committed a foul, Cronin roared, “What did I say?” so loudly that his words could be heard in the upper reaches of the arena.

There were also plenty of pleasing developments. UCLA’s Dylan Andrews scored 21 points on eight-for-12 shooting to go with six assists and forward Tyler Bilodeau had 18 points. Harris also redeemed himself with a nifty assist and only his second three-pointer of the season.

Next up is a far greater challenge. The Bruins (10-1) will take their nine-game winning streak to New York for a game Saturday at Madison Square Garden against fellow blue blood North Carolina.

UCLA’s offense will head into that showdown in high gear after registering a season high for points … with 10:16 left in the game. That can happen when you shoot 59%, make 47.6% of your three-point attempts and convert 29 of 37 free throws.

UCLA’s defense wasn’t as crisp, particularly on the perimeter. Reserve guard Jordan Tillmon made six of seven three-point shots on the way to 24 points for the Panthers (1-10), who shot 47.1% and 47.6% from long range in scoring the most points of any Bruins opponent this season.

Bruins forward Eric Dailey Jr. scored 14 points and center Aday Mara contributed nine points, 11 rebounds, two blocks and three assists in 16 minutes off the bench.

This was the 10th consecutive road game in a 12-game trip for Prairie View A&M, whose only victory came in its season opener on its home court over the College of Biblical Studies of Houston, an NCAA Division II school.

Beating UCLA would have been an upset of biblical proportions, with basketball analyst Ken Pomeroy giving the Bruins a 99.7% chance of winning. After falling into an early 18-point hole, the Panthers could dream when they rolled off a 10-0 run to cut their deficit to single digits midway through the first half.

But the Bruins were just too big, too physical, too tough. Prairie View A&M often had no choice but to foul, repeatedly sending UCLA to the free-throw line in the first half. The Bruins made 14 of 17 tries on the way to their 53-36 halftime advantage.

There was also no answer the Panthers could conjure for Mara, UCLA’s 7-foot-3 sophomore who showed the many ways he can affect the game in his five first-half minutes. Mara threw down a putback dunk, grabbed four rebounds and logged assists on passes to Skyy Clark and Andrews.

There was a moment to celebrate in the first half when Lazar Stefanovic made three free throws to surpass 1,000 points for his career, the milestone acknowledged with a graphic on the video board.

Houston Texans sensation C.J. Stroud had a chance to solidify himself this season among the NFL’s elite class of quarterbacks.

The No. 2 pick in the 2023 draft was an easy choice for Offensive Rookie of the Year. During training camp, The Athletic asked coaches and executives which three quarterbacks they’d take to start a franchise from scratch, with Stroud appearing on 16 of 27 ballots. Only Patrick Mahomes received more votes.

Instead, Stroud’s projected jump has been on hold. He hasn’t been bad this season, but his performance has dipped — and so has his standing in these rankings. This is the first time Stroud has found himself outside of the top 10. One executive said Stroud has been “not playing anywhere near (as well as) last year” when he was so dominant that he dramatically accelerated the Texans’ rebuild by leading them to their first AFC South title in four years.

Two statistics stand out. First, Stroud led the NFL in 2023 with 273.9 passing yards per game, but it has dropped to 232.0 this season, ranking 17th. He also led the league as a rookie by throwing interceptions on 1 percent of his passes, but that’s doubled to 2 percent (16th in the NFL) this season.

“I don’t expect C.J. to be a guy who dips and will continue to struggle,” a second executive said. “I think he’ll figure it out, and they’ll figure it out as a team. They have enough weapons. The way they’ve run the ball will take pressure off him.”

Stroud’s issues have stemmed from protection problems on the offensive line. He’s already taken more sacks this season than as a rookie (45 to 38), and he’s been sacked on nearly 9 percent of his dropbacks, an increase of about 2 percent.

There’s no escaping @zachsieler. 😈 #ProBowlVote pic.twitter.com/4Fd73A1k3f

— Miami Dolphins (@MiamiDolphins) December 15, 2024

“He’s getting the s— beat out of him,” the second executive said. “He’s been getting hit all year. When C.J. is under pressure, the play is going to drop off. When you’re not comfortable and don’t trust what’s around you, that’s not surprising as a young quarterback. I don’t think he’s regressed. I think he’s just sped up with the progressions and the throws, and that hurts accuracy.”

The hits can be impossible for even the best quarterbacks to overcome, let alone the younger signal callers who are still developing. When the Texans lost three of four earlier this season to the Lions, Jets, Colts (win) and Packers, Stroud took 18 sacks and was hit 17 more times.

Of course, it also hasn’t helped that top receiver Nico Collins missed five games with a hamstring injury, star wideout Stefon Diggs tore his ACL in Week 8 and running back Joe Mixon missed three early games with a high ankle sprain.

So no, Stroud hasn’t dazzled the way he did as a rookie, but it’s also understandable. Add in the defensive adjustments that young quarterbacks face, the lack of pass protection and the injuries around Stroud, and it’s been enough to rock his typically steady composure.

“People in the scouting community were interested to see how this offense and the player would adjust in Year 2 when teams had a year to study, adjust and learn what he does well and what he struggles with,” a third executive said. “Now it’s up to the offensive staff and the player to adjust if they can.”

It’s also fair to point out that Stroud isn’t the first quarterback to deal with protection and injury issues. But at this stage of his career, that’s a common confluence of factors that result in temporary quarterback regression.

“It’s learning how to deal with that,” the second executive said.

All the while, the Texans still wrapped up the AFC South division title with three games to play. They beat the Bills in Week 4 and lost to the Packers and Lions by a combined five points, so they’re not too far off. Their next two games, against the Chiefs and Ravens, could change the entire perception around the Texans’ playoff chances.

However the rest of the season plays out, no coach nor executive surveyed by The Athletic this season believes Stroud’s rookie year was a fluke. This season is viewed as growing pains for a quarterback who can still mature into one of the league’s best players.

Collision course

Jared Goff has been outstanding all season, but the Lions QB did something Sunday in the loss to the Bills that should create optimism during a frustrating stretch in Detroit.

Earlier in the year, executives wanted to see how Goff would perform when the Lions weren’t in command of the game — obvious passing situations in a deficit when he needed to go throw for throw with an upper-echelon quarterback on the opposing sideline.

GO DEEPER

Lions got a reality check against Bills. How they respond will determine how far they can go

Suffice it to say, Goff didn’t blink despite trailing by multiple scores for the majority of the Lions’ 48-42 loss. And given the state of the Lions’ injury-ravaged defense and the unenviable task of countering another superhuman performance from Josh Allen, there wasn’t any room for error after Detroit’s stagnant start.

Goff finished Sunday 38-of-59 passing for 494 yards and five touchdowns. He led four consecutive TD drives to close the game, nearly helping the Lions pull off a miracle comeback despite a rare Amon-Ra St. Brown lost fumble and a Jake Bates missed field goal.

GOFF TO AMON-RA. 66-YARD TD.

Not over in Detroit.

📺: #BUFvsDET on CBS/Paramount+
📱: https://t.co/waVpO909ge pic.twitter.com/uHEKLWabzy

— NFL (@NFL) December 15, 2024

Goff proved he can post points in a hurry if necessary. And with how many injuries the Lions have endured, it will probably be necessary.

Speaking of which, Eagles QB Jalen Hurts also silenced some doubters, internal or otherwise, with a brilliant performance in a 27-13 victory against the Steelers. He was 25 of 32 for 290 yards and two touchdowns while rushing for 45 yards and a score, and Hurts did it while running back Saquon Barkley was largely limited.

The Lions and Eagles have been the NFC’s top-two seeds since the playoff picture began to take shape, so it would hardly be a surprise to see them square off with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line. And with both quarterbacks answering pivotal questions against quality opponents, such a matchup could live up to the hype.

Pick 2

Two random thoughts. First, Packers wideout Romeo Doubs did indeed make an awesome catch on his game-sealing 22-yard touchdown against the Seahawks, but let’s not lose sight of Jordan Love’s throw. The Packers QB was at the 32-yard line when he made the throw to Doubs, who was at the 10-yard line and wrestling through tight coverage during the QB’s windup. Love picked a perfect spot and couldn’t have thrown it any better.

WHAT AN INCREDIBLE CATCH!#ProBowlVote + #RomeoDoubs pic.twitter.com/P8Zu0eEgoD

— Green Bay Packers (@packers) December 16, 2024

Second, and this might sound weird after a 12-6 rock fight in the rain, but Rams QB Matthew Stafford has been playing at a very high level for most of the past month. His performance two weeks ago against the Bills was as good as it gets in terms of making high-quality throw after high-quality throw. The Rams are shaping up to be a threat if they get into the playoffs, and Stafford’s play is a primary reason.

Bloody Sunday

It was a tough week to play quarterback. Mahomes suffered a high ankle sprain; Geno Smith exited with a knee injury; and Justin Herbert aggravated his ankle injury.

Additionally, Jameis Winston, Jake Haener and Will Levis were benched, while Tommy DeVito suffered a concussion.

We kept Winston and Levis in the rankings while the Browns and Titans assess their situations. Haener was replaced in the rankings by Spencer Rattler, as we work under the assumption he’ll get a longer look after his impressive second half against the Commanders.

Showing the fragility of the backup/fringe starter dynamic across the league, just six teams have had the 32nd-ranked QB in 16 weeks this season — the Dolphins (five times), Giants (four), Raiders (two), Titans (two), Saints (two) and Packers (one). And in hindsight, if there was any way to predict how well Malik Willis would have played for the Packers, they wouldn’t be on this list.

Dropped out: Drew Lock (heel injury), No. 31 last week; Haener (benched), No. 32 last week.

(Photo of C.J. Stroud: Luke Hales / Getty Images)