{"id":48172,"date":"2025-08-05T23:47:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T23:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/48172\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T23:47:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T23:47:10","slug":"49ers-te-george-kittle-on-nfl-substance-ban-i-considered-retirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/48172\/","title":{"rendered":"49ers TE George Kittle on NFL substance ban: ‘i considered retirement’"},"content":{"rendered":"

49ers TE George Kittle on NFL substance ban: ‘i considered retirement’<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s safe to say San Francisco 49ers star tight end George Kittle is not a fan of the NFL news rules.<\/p>\n

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During a live broadcast of the NFL Network, Kittle interrupted to announce the NFL had banned\u00a0smelling salts and ammonia packets.<\/p>\n

The six-time Pro Bowler joked that the ruling nearly ended his career on the spot.<\/p>\n

\u201cI considered retirement,” Kittle said, according to NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo. “We have to figure out a middle ground.”<\/p>\n

The tongue-in-cheek response masks what is obviously an under-the-radar ruling for the league.<\/p>\n

Smelling salts have been used for decades by players as a way to temporarily enhance alertness and focus.<\/p>\n

No doubt, the new rule will be a major talking point now that Kittle has spilled the tea.<\/p>\n

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Further, 49ers fans are hopeful smelling salts aren’t the secret to Kittle’s success.<\/p>\n

San Francisco traded away Deebo Samuel this offseason and doesn’t expect Brandon Aiyuk to be ready for the start of the season.<\/p>\n

With Jauan Jennings sitting out with a calf injury –\u00a0 and possible contract dispute – and Rickey Pearsall nursing a hamstring, Kittle may be Brock Purdy’s go-to pass-catcher early in the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"49ers TE George Kittle on NFL substance ban: ‘i considered retirement’ originally appeared on The Sporting News It’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[18076,29897,49,48,25646,29896,9055,30268,514,16072,5886,948,33203,82],"class_list":["post-48172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-brandon-aiyuk","tag-brock-purdy","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-deebo-samuel","tag-george-kittle","tag-jauan-jennings","tag-mike-garafolo","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-network","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-49ers","tag-smelling-salts","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}