George Kittle shares ref injury story during Jauan Jennings' wrongful ejection in 49ers finale

San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Jauan Jennings was on the verge of reaching a major career milestone—his first 1,000-yard season. He finished his 2024 campaign just 25 yards shy of the landmark after being ejected from the team's finale against the Arizona Cardinals.

Tight end George Kittle, a close teammate and supporter of Jennings, was eager to help him get there. But the very questionable ejection following an on-field scuffle ended Jennings' chance at the achievement. While the NFL later fined the two Cardinals players involved, Jennings was not—suggesting he was wrongfully penalized.

Kittle recently recounted the story during an appearance on the Bussin' With The Boys podcast, offering a behind-the-scenes look at the incident. Notably, Kittle revealed that he wasn't able to run over and help defuse the situation because he was tending to an injured official at the time.

"The fun thing about that game, the last game of the year, would have been Jauan Jennings was going for 1,000 yards for the first time in his career," Kittle said, per Zach Ragan of A to Z Sports. "He got ejected. He was like 30 yards away, and Jauan's a blocker -- you pull up any highlight of that dude, he's an a-----e. He was 25 yards away and got ejected in likethe second quarter. Our whole game plan was just to feed Jauan to break 1,000, which are really fun game plans to be a part of. Everyone wanted Jauan to break 1,000."

Kittle went on to explain how the situation escalated.

"So he blocked a dude on a run — I don't know if it was a pass or a run — he's blocking the dude and pancakes him," he continued. "Then the dude gets up, and they start fighting. They both get 15-yard penalties, and [Jauan] didn't throw a punch once. He gets jumped by like three Cardinals players, so there's two penalties offsetting. Then, the next play, it's an outside zone. He's blocking one of the Cardinals DBs, who's yelling at him, and literally just grabs him and throws him down. So they're doing that, and Jauan gets ejected. But he never got fined for it, because the NFL reviewed the film and was like he did nothing wrong, he shouldn't have been ejected. So he missed out on a 1,000-yard season for no reason."

Meanwhile, Kittle was occupied with aiding another person on the field.

"The best part about this play was a ref was running over to break it up and he popped his hammy -- right in front of me," Kittle added. "I'm jogging over, and he's in front of me, and he just grabs his hamstring and goes down. I'm like, 'Oh, sir, sir, are you okay?' He's like, 'Ah, no, I'm not.' I'm like, 'Oh no, dude.' So I didn't get over there (to the scuffle with Jennings). I was picking up a ref and helping him off the sideline."

Looking ahead to the 2025 season, Jennings is poised for a breakout year. With Deebo Samuel traded to the Washington Commanders and Brandon Aiyuk recovering from a significant knee injury, Jennings is expected to start Week 1 against the Seattle Seahawks. He'll also be entering a contract year, giving him every incentive to shine in what could be the most pivotal season of his NFL career.