Inside George Kittle’s 243-day recovery from torn Achilles

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — At 5:30 on a late March morning, eight weeks after surgery to repair his torn right Achilles, San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle was wide-awake.

Kittle and a close group of friends had traveled to Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon for six rounds in four days. For fullback Kyle Juszczyk and others of the traveling party, it was a leisurely weekend on the links. For Kittle, it was an important step in his road back to the football field, a path he had defiantly proclaimed could have him ready for Week 1 in Melbourne, Australia. Which is why, when Juszczyk came downstairs to begin loosening up for that day’s rounds, he found Kittle meticulously picking up a towel with his toes.

It was a prime example of Kittle’s disciplined approach to rehab his injured Achilles, and a side of Kittle the public rarely sees beneath the ebullient pro wrestling persona. This was the passionate, football-obsessed Kittle who had no desire to let anyone else author the timeline of his return.

“It’s fun to be doubted,” Kittle, 32, told ESPN last week. “I’m not a chip-on-my-shoulder guy whatsoever, but when you have all the people who are like, ‘Oh, you’re not doing this, you’re not doing that.’ I’m like, ‘I am doing that and extra. You believe whatever you want, you can talk however you want to talk, but when you see me Week 1, you can kick rocks.'”

Kittle’s discipline fueled an odds-defying, 243-day recovery from a torn Achilles suffered in a Jan. 11 NFC wild-card win over the Philadelphia Eagles. Through those eight months, he channeled his usual golden retriever energy into tedious daily rehab. The usual recovery can take anywhere from eight months to a year, but a June 2026 study done at Michigan State University and published in the Physician and Sportsmedicine Journal said almost 20% of players with a ruptured Achilles don’t return to play. The study also said only 27.1% of NFL players return to pre-injury performance levels.

But so far this season, Kittle has reasserted himself as one of the league’s best tight ends. After knocking off rust in the opener against the Rams, Kittle has posted 10 receptions for 162 yards and three touchdowns in the past two weeks — second-most receiving yards among all tight ends over that span.

Kittle’s recovery required shuttling between physical therapists in Los Angeles (Heather Milligan) and Nashville (Jorge Rojas, DPT), as well as check-ins with the 49ers. With the guidance of Dr. Neil ElAttrache, the Los Angeles-based surgeon who performed the Achilles repair on Jan. 14, Kittle’s team devised a blueprint to make his Week 1 dream a reality. Executing that plan was up to him.

“As an athlete, you have to have that special sauce that you’re really willing to push yourself to the very limit so that you can get back,” Milligan said. “You don’t wish injury on anybody, but the matchup of what it takes on this rehab with his personality and focus is a huge part of why he was so successful.

“You’ve got the best patient in the world.”

THREE DAYS AFTER Kittle tore the Achilles, he laid on a surgical bed looking up at ElAttrache. He had two questions.

The first, according to Kittle, was “Will I be healthy enough to make the golf trip to Bandon Dunes in eight weeks?” ElAttrache told him he “had a chance.” Because Kittle’s tear occurred high up near the soleus muscle, ElAttrache didn’t have to drill into his heel, and the higher tear also allowed for superior blood flow to promote faster healing.

The second question: “What are my chances of being back for Week 1?” Again, ElAttrache told Kittle it was possible. But he emphasized not to deviate from Milligan’s instructions. “Once I was told that you have a shot, if you do all the things the right way, then I was like, ‘All right, let’s go,'” Kittle said. “I just attacked it with a super positive mindset.”

Upon meeting Milligan, Kittle got the rundown on how the recovery might go and what he had to do to make it successful. Milligan told Kittle about an athlete who came back from the same injury but had a huge difference in the size of his legs because he didn’t properly strengthen both of them before returning to field work. That athlete tore the ACL on his other leg in his first year back.

Kittle bought in immediately. Within minutes of getting his cast off, he was doing pointed toe flexes. Once he shed his walking boot, Milligan instructed him on which inserts to put in his shoes, starting with 3.5 centimeters. The inserts got smaller as he progressed, down to the 0.75 ones he still wears.

Most importantly, Kittle never lost sight of the importance of strengthening both legs. Using numbers collected from the 49ers, Milligan and Rojas knew how strong Kittle was before the injury. To ensure the legs stayed within 10% strength of each other, Milligan tracked his calf girth and put him on a strain gauge to measure his raw toe-push force against a weight room floor plate.

As Milligan emphasized, the goal wasn’t just to get Kittle back on the field. It was to get him back as close to his normal level of performance as possible. That meant continuing to do the boring single leg heel raises or marble pickups for about 90 minutes to two hours every day over the course of 10 weeks.

“When the strength is there, you cannot cheat that,” Milligan said. “This is one injury. There is no way to skip steps. You just can’t.”

WHEN THE NINERS began organized team activities in May, Kittle worked on an anti-gravity treadmill at 30% of his body weight. Two weeks later, Kittle was at 80% body weight. Soon after that, he was running on the football field at his home in Nashville, hitting 15 miles per hour.

It was there that Kittle and Rojas worked through the most mind-numbing portions of the rehab. Since there are only so many exercises you can do on the Achilles — calf raises off a wedge while standing, seated, with bands or with isolation holds — Rojas tried to challenge Kittle by forcing him to do it all from different angles to best simulate some of the sudden football movements.

Some days, Rojas threw Kittle tennis balls. Other days, they chatted about life, trying to find ways to break the boredom.

All the while, Kittle was deploying his secret weapon: a BFR. A BFR is, essentially, a tourniquet that Kittle strapped to his thigh to cut off the blood flow into the muscles he was working. It tricks the brain into thinking it’s taking on heavier loads than it actually is. According to Kittle, it’s a better method to work to failure when you can’t bear weight on the leg.

In any Achilles recovery, the BFR is a suggested tool used a couple of times a week. Kittle used it twice every day.

He also used the BFR as a recovery method, inflating it to 100% and then laying down for a few minutes so when he deflated it, the blood rushed back into the leg.

“It’s really hard,” Rojas said. “It makes the easiest thing really challenging. It enabled us to push him hard from a muscular standpoint without putting a ton of stress on the Achilles that was healing … Him really pushing through some of that boring stuff and pushing that calf to fatigue is why he was able to get back so fast.”

Most days, Rojas went to Kittle’s house for workouts in his barn or on the field that serves as part of his backyard. As Kittle began running again, he goaded Rojas into joining him.

One midsummer day, Rojas finally joined the run. Jogging at about 60% effort, Kittle left Rojas in the dust. Rojas knew then that Kittle was going to be back sooner than later.

“George is one of one,” Rojas said. “He physically is gifted, but there’s a lot of guys who are as gifted, if not more so. For him, it’s that mindset and the work … I think that’s the perfect recipe to get somebody back that quickly. And I don’t think you see all of that dialed in on one person very often.”

BY EARLY JULY, Kittle had pushed himself through the early months of the recovery by picking up marbles with his toes while overlooking the ocean in Cabo San Lucas and walking the flatter fairways of Bandon Dunes for four days with his friends. He’d had his usual summer fun in the midst of an intense recovery process.

After attending the biggest wedding of the summer (of good friend Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift) on July 3, Kittle returned to Nashville ready to make one final push before training camp. Heeding the advice of Milligan, Kittle said he made sure to “not be an idiot” about the rest of his rehab.

Quarterback Brock Purdy, who also owns a home in the Nashville area, joined Kittle at his field for some route running. They weren’t full speed, but Kittle remembers feeling his Week 1 goal was becoming realistic. That belief was buoyed by the fact that Kittle hadn’t felt pain in his calf or Achilles since around the 15th week of his rehab.

“That’s actually remarkable to be able to have that kind of injury and do what he did to get back,” Purdy said. “He flew places, he did things. He did everything the right way, and he just worked his tail off every day.”

Kittle started training camp on the physically unable to perform list. The team activated him on Aug. 23. By the time the Niners left for Melbourne, he was practicing consistently and trending toward playing against the Rams.

“I think as much as people know George, I don’t think anyone really sees how much he puts into this,” running back Christian McCaffrey said. “He’s a fun, loving guy. He’s charismatic. He’s everybody’s best friend. … But if you didn’t know any of that and you just saw his work, you’d be like, ‘He’s one of the hardest workers you’ve ever seen.'”

On a late September afternoon, Kittle recounts everything those 243 days wrought. He thinks about using a scooter at the Pro Bowl in February. He notes his return took three days longer than it took Kobe Bryant to come back from the same injury in 2013. He shouts out retired NFL players Richard Sherman and Andrew Whitworth, as well as current Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton, for their advice and encouragement.

Kittle lights up about making friends with Arnold Schwarzenegger while rehabbing in Los Angeles — and casually mentions he and Juszczyk received an invite to hang out with Schwarzenegger at his sports festival in Ohio next March. He even makes sure to mention he had his best round at Bandon Dunes, nearly breaking 80 on the Old McDonald course. He pleads guilty to getting emotional before kickoff in Melbourne and points out that the Achilles injury only cost him one game, the NFC divisional round matchup with the Seattle Seahawks.

And then, Kittle smiles that Cheshire cat smile of his and acknowledges that this all won’t last forever. But he will do whatever is necessary to savor every bit of his remaining journey.

“For my entire life, especially my NFL career, it’s all about how good I can be at football for as long as I can be,” Kittle said. “I don’t care if I’m on vacation. I don’t care if I’m out with the boys. I don’t care if I’m on a golf trip. I’m very aware that football is what’s allowed me to have this awesome life. And so that’s always been my No. 1 priority.”