San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle always loves sharing a funny anecdote.
The 49ers are in Philadelphia to face the reigning Super Bowl champions in the Wild-Card Round of the 2025 season playoffs.
The 49ers and Eagles have a rough recent history, from the Niners’ 31-7 blowout loss in the 2022 NFC Championship Game to turning the tables with a dominant 42-19 victory in the 2023 regular season. That 2023 game was the one that put Brock Purdy firmly on the map as a serious quarterback.
Now they’re facing off again at Lincoln Financial Field, a venue notorious for its deafening noise, with the season on the line. Kittle, unsurprisingly, is ready for the challenge.
“The one thing that’s really unique about Philly is they don’t really, maybe a division rival is different, but any other road team that goes in there, they hate all of us equally,” Kittle said to NBC Sports Bay Area. “I just appreciate that. It’s incredibly loud, they flip you off, they moon you on your bus ride in, but they do that to anybody.
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“It doesn’t matter if you’re the Niners or the Jacksonville Jaguars. They just give you that no matter what, and I appreciate that because you can tell how much they love their team.
“I thoroughly enjoy it because it’s so unique every single time,” Kittle said. “I’ll never forget my rookie season, the year they won the Super Bowl.
“We’re pulling in, it’s my first time playing at the Linc, and there were four 10-year-old kids holding a 7-foot tall paper-maché middle finger that had a rotating thing on that made the middle come up.
“That was the coolest thing. I’ll never forget it. It was my rookie year, and I was like, ‘This is excellent.’ ”
The funny story shows what all teams come to expect when travelling to the third seed. Hostility is understandable, but it’s something the 49ers will need to either block out or use to their advantage.
As shared, they put up 42 points last time, and it was one of their best victories in the regular season that year. It’s hard to compare the 49ers now to how they were back then, but it shows that a dominant performance in such an environment is possible.
Though a replica performance is unlikely, a victory over the Eagles in this matchup could rank among the best games of Shanahan’s coaching legacy. After all, it’s incredible that the 49ers are in the playoffs in the first place.
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