San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan is widely regarded as one of the best offensive minds in the NFL. Considering what 49ers tight end George Kittle recently had to say, Shanahan's genius might be underappreciated. Kittle told The Ringer’s Kevin Clark and Steven Ruiz on the “Slow News Day” podcast that Shanahan will sometimes call offensive plays that he knows will fail because they will help set up a play for the 49ers' offense later in the game.

George Kittle used an example from the 49ers' 2023 playoff win over the Seattle Seahawks to highlight Shanahan's strategy

“We played Seattle in the playoffs this year and Kyle has this thing where if he wants to set up a play action or a bootleg type, we'll sometimes call a run play that he knows is not going to work,” Kittle said.

“We're running a run play multiple times and it's averaging like two yards a carry, two yards a carry, two yards a carry and we threw a play-action behind it and Deebo [Samuel] goes for like 75 yards in Seattle.”

The play Kittle described ended up being a backbreaker for the Seahawks. With San Francisco leading Seattle 31-17 with 11 minutes left in their wild-card playoff matchup, Brock Purdy connected with Samuel on the 49ers' 34-yard-line. Samuel ran 66 yards up the sideline after the catch, icing a postseason victory for San Francisco.

Kittle said that the 49ers had used the exact same motion and the exact same alignment for short runs earlier in the game. The Seahawks' defenders were expecting another handoff. Instead, Purdy and Samuel effectively sent San Francisco to the divisional round.