Super Bowl LIV features the two best tight ends in the game: Kansas City’s Travis Kelce and San Francisco’s George Kittle. Over the last six seasons, Kelce has averaged 1,078 receiving yards per season, and he’s posted four straight 1,000-yard years. But it was Kittle who was the top tight end this year according to the AP, and the top player overall according to Pro Football Focus.
Kittle is an excellent blocker and an outstanding receiver, but today, I want to focus on his receiving numbers. While Kittle put together a great season working with Jimmy Garoppolo, he ranked “only” 3rd in receiving yards among tight ends. That’s because the 49ers were one of the most run-heavy teams this year: Kelce’s Chiefs threw 97 more passes than the 49ers, while Oakland’s Darren Waller played on a team that threw 45 more passes than San Francisco.
In terms of pure receiving yards per team pass attempt, Kittle was best in the league.
But even that is misleading, as Kittle missed two games this year due to injury…. and those were the two most pass-happy games the 49ers had all season (probably not a coincidence). In the 14 games that Kittle played, San Francisco threw only 387 passes. This means Kittle’s 1,053 yards really came at a much more efficient rate: he averaged a whopping 2.72 receiving yards per team attempt in the games he was active. That is ridiculous!
How ridiculous? Well, since 1970, the single best mark in receiving yards per team pass attempt by a tight end was 2.59… set by Kittle last year, when he was mostly catching passes from Nick Mullens. The table below shows all tight end seasons since 1970 where a tight end averaged at least 2.00 receiving yards per team pass attempt.
Kittle just finished his third season, and he’s now arguably produced the two top receiving seasons since 1970 by a tight end in one of the key measures of receiving play.
