Early under-the-radar standouts of the current NFL season

#4 George Kittle

I loved this guy’s all-around skill-set coming out of college when I watched his tape early on last year. At Iowa Kittle was used in a multitude of roles – as a true Y tight-end, H-back, fullback and others. His reception numbers were fairly low in a run-centric offense, but his effort as a blocker, versatility and natural receiving abilities put him among my top 100 draft prospects.

Back then I said his best days as a receiver were ahead of him and three games into this season he looks a valuable asset for this 49er offense. After catching 43 passes for 515 yards as a rookie, Kittle has totaled almost 200 yards through the air already in 2018.

The second-year man has been very effective coming underneath the formation on zone-split fakes and going out into the flats, running drag or dig routes and even catching a screen and shovel pass respectively.

Kittle does an excellent job creating separation through contact and using that little chicken-wing to push off at the top of his route, he has been a security blanket underneath and he runs hard with the ball in his hands, shoving defenders out of the way and going through them. Plus, he is a quality blocker.