Week 4 Quick Reads

The first three games of the season were not kind to George Kittle. In 2019, the San Francisco tight end averaged more than six catches and 75 yards per game, but he managed only four catches for 44 yards in the 2020 opener against Arizona. Worse, he suffered a sprained knee against the Cardinals and missed the next two weeks entirely.

Things turned around in Week 4, however, in a very big way. The 49ers went to Kittle early and often on Sunday night. He finished the game against the Eagles with 15 receptions (most for any player in a game this year), a 100% catch rate, 183 yards, and one touchdown.

Not all of Kittle's catches were successful. He opened with a 9-yard gain on third-and-10 to set up a Mitch Wishnowsky punt. He had two other failed completions in the game, a 5-yard gain on second-and-10 and a 2-yard gain on second-and-7. In the last 24 minutes, however, he was unstoppable; each of his seven catches in that timeframe produced a first down. That began with a 5-yard touchdown on third-and-goal from Nick Mullens. He caught one more pass from Mullens, a 20-yard gain on second-and-9, before the quarterback threw a pick-six and was benched for C.J. Beathard. If anything, Beathard leaned even harder on Kittle than Mullens had. In just two drives at the end of the game, Beathard completed five passes to Kittle for 55 yards.

So where does Kittle's game rank in the tight end record books? Very highly indeed. He's the first tight end to gain 180-plus yards and a touchdown since … George Kittle, who did it against Denver in 2018. Only one other tight end has ever done it twice: Vernon Davis, Kittle's predecessor in San Francisco. The other five men to pull it off -- Dallas Clark, Shannon Sharpe, Rich Caster, Jackie Smith, and Mike Ditka -- were all Super Bowl champions and/or Hall of Famers.

The advanced numbers were also impressed. Without opponent adjustments, Kittle is credited with 81 total YAR (75 receiving, 6 rushing for his one carry for 8 yards). That's just the ninth tight end game in the DVOA database (going back to 1985) with 80-plus YAR.

You don't have to go back too far to find a tight end performance better than Kittle's -- our system favors Travis Kelce's 134-yard, three-touchdown game against Houston in the divisional round of last year's playoffs. Before that, however, you have to go all the way back to 2014 when Rob Gronkowski was at his peak to find a tight end who was this successful moving the ball downfield.

The key phrase in all of this, unfortunately, is "without opponent adjustments." It's Week 4, which is the first week we start to incorporate opponent adjustments into our numbers. So far those opponent adjustments are not nearly as radical as they were in 2019. This is great news for me, your humble Quick Reads scribe, because it means I won't have to explain a half-dozen different seemingly bizarre results week-in and week-out. For Kittle, however, the news is not as kind, because his big game came against the Eagles, who have been the worst defense in football in covering tight ends in 2020. Consider what tight ends have done against Philadelphia this season:

Week 1: Washington's Logan Thomas only catches four of eight targets for 37 yards, but three of those catches produce first downs, including a touchdown.

Week 2: All five of the passes thrown to Tyler Higbee are completed, for a total of 54 yards. Three of those completions result in touchdowns; the others were 6- and 13-yard gains, both on first-and-10.

Week 3: The Bengals haven't used their tight ends very much this season, and that was especially true against Philadelphia. Joe Burrow threw 44 passes against the Eagles, but he only targeted his tight ends twice, resulting in a pair of 1-yard completions -- one for Drew Sample, one for Cethan Carter -- both of which came on first down. That's very limited production, but remember that DVOA is calculated target-by-target, not game-by-game. Therefore, this outing had very little impact on Philadelphia's defensive stats against tight ends.

Add in Kittle's production, and the Eagles have allowed opposing tight ends to produce 18 first downs and 276 total yards, both fifth-most in the league. They are also in the bottom four of the league's 32 teams in each of the following categories:

• Yards per target: 9.2 (28th)
• Touchdowns: five (tied for next to last)
• Catch rate: 87% (last)
• First downs/target: 60% (last)

All in all, that's a DVOA of 57.7% against tight ends. That's much worse than anyone else -- Washington is in 31st place at 44.4%. (Remember, higher DVOA means worse defense.)

We introduce opponent adjustments gradually throughout the year; right now, they are only at 40% strength. Even with that limitation, however, Kittle loses 17 DYAR for playing the Eagles. With that penalty, his game falls to 64 DYAR, knocking him out of the top 10 in our tight end game tables all the way down to 36th place. (Kelce's playoff game against Houston actually goes up in DYAR after opponent adjustments and is the all-time leader with 88 DYAR.)

We're still only a quarter of the way through the season, so these opponent adjustments are going to fluctuate a lot between now and Week 17 (assuming, of course, there is a Week 17). The Eagles are scheduled to play the Steelers and Ravens the next two weeks, and it would only take a couple of fumbles by Eric Ebron or Mark Andrews to make their defense -- and transitively, Kittle's performance against that defense -- look much better. Even getting 10 DYAR back would have him in the verge of the top 10, so this is a situation that certainly bears watching.