49ers Fullback Kyle Juszczyk Thinks He's Underpaid

Kyle Juszczyk loves to talk to the media.

In a sense, he's the 49ers' designated talker. Any time they need someone to speak on behalf of the team, he volunteers, because he likes to talk about other players. Rarely does he get to answer questions about himself because he doesn't touch the ball often. After all, he's a fullback.

And yet, George Kittle still invited Juszczyk to this year's Tight End University. This was Juszczyk's first-ever invitation to the event. He received it partly because Kittle and Juszczyk are close friends, and partly because Juszczyk sincerely sees himself as a tight end.

"Am I a tight end? Am I not a tight end? I don't know," Juszczyk said recently to NBC Sports Bay Area's Matt Maiocco. "That's a great question. Unfortunately, I think I'm a tight end and not a tight end at all the wrong times. I'm a fullback when it comes to contract negotiations, which hurts, but then I'm a tight end on game day."

This was part of an 11-minute sit-down interview Juszczyk did with Maiocco at the 2026 American Century Championship in Lake Tahoe. As I wrote, Juszczyk isn't shy. And he has an extremely high opinion of himself.

“You’ve watched me play for a long time," Juszczyk continued. "I play everywhere. I play in that tight end position a lot."

Translation: Juszczyk thinks he's underpaid because he's unfairly labeled as a fullback when he's really a tight end who can play fullback when asked to.

This simply isn't true.

Juszczyk does not play the tight end position a lot, as he claimed. He almost never lines up on the line of scrimmage like a true tight end, because he's too small. He's 6-2, 235 pounds. Sometimes he lines up as H-back, but rarely as a tight end.

Juszczyk has been paid $46 million in his career primarily because he's a fullback. He's one of roughly seven players in the NFL who can play this quasi-dead position adequately. If he had to be a full-time tight end, he wouldn't even be a starter. He would be a journeyman backup H-back who probably would have made less than $20 million in his career.

That's because Juszczyk can't block on the line of scrimmage, nor is he a major threat as a receiver. In his entire career, he never has gained more than 354 yards from scrimmage in a season. He's an afterthought who catches the occasional pass when defenses forget about him. Which means he's an expensive decoy and a blocking specialist when he's not the designated talker.

I'd say he's done extremely well for himself, all things considered.

By the end of this year, he will have gotten paid nearly $50 million in his career. And then, his contract will expire, and he probably will retire. He'll be 36.

What a respectable career for a fullback.