Theo Von’s This Past Weekend with Theo Von podcast always delivers laughs, but the conversation turned serious when George Kittle described the NFL season grind with a brutal comparison.
The San Francisco 49ers tight end shared what it is like for NFL players like himself to endure practice and games for 17 plus weeks.
It goes without saying but NFL games are typically played on Sundays, with some teams occasionally playing on Monday and Thursday nights. Week after the week, the players practice for a game, play their opponent, and then start the process all over again.
As fans of football have seen, the schedule can be substantially taxing on the professional athletes who play the game. Regardless of when the teams play, the NFL mandates a certain amount of days to recover between games, but Kittle shared in the interview that it isn’t always that simple.
In a simple, yet brutal analogy, Kittle explained it like this:
“It’s like I’m in a car accident every Sunday, like multiple car accidents every Sunday.
Monday, I have to do a big lower body lift and I have to move, otherwise you get more stiff and more sore. So you do a big lift and try to stay a little bit mobile, but Mondays I usually feel OK. T
Tuesdays are really, really hard days, it’s the second day afterward and you kind of feel everything.”
The “delayed pain” kicks in right when practice and preparation picks up for the next week’s game. Kittle concedes that the process can be agonizing:
“Some Tuesdays are better than others. Like if we play on the East Coast, we have a five-hour flight back and then I get home at 4 a.m., those are tough.”
Though Von and Kittle shared many laughs throughout the conversation, the topic of recovery was evidently important to the Pro Bowl Tight End.
Once they got deep into the conversation, Kittle shared the physical toll that the NFL schedule has on some of the most in shape individuals in the world:
“You get in these car accidents (on Sundays) and on Thursday to Friday is when I start to feel like myself again. And then the more end of the season you get, the more your body is facing the wear and tear.
So really now how I see it is if I’m not doing football, I’m doing recovery.”
The game that all of us watch for fun on Sundays (while probably snacking endlessly and drinking alcohol) is a vicious cycle of pain, play, and recovery for those participating. The comparison is a very serious insight on how these NFL players feel during the season.
With all of that being said, the interview was still very fun and light hearted.
Kittle has great energy and is very personable, and the comedian Theo Von is, as always, his genuine self:
Also during the interview, the former Tennessee Titans offensive tackle Taylor Lewan caught a stray from Theo Von. Lewan, who seems to be a fan of both Von and Kittle, hilariously tweeted this response:
