Brock Purdy is trying to negotiate a lucrative, long-term contract extension with the San Francisco 49ers. The 25-year-old is getting help from one of his teammates who has been through the process before.
That would be tight end George Kittle. The eight-year veteran recently explained to NBC Sports Bay Area he was serving as a sounding board for Purdy amid his contract negotiations.
‘Just trying to help him out as best I can without ever trying to overstep,’ Kittle explained. ‘Because he’s an adult and he knows what he wants to do with his life, but if I can help with a little guidance here and there, I try my best.’
Kittle signed an extension of his own with the 49ers during the 2025 NFL offseason. The new contract made him the league’s highest-paid tight end with an average annual value (AAV) of $19.1 million.
It marked the second time Kittle had signed a big-money deal with the 49ers. Even so, he knows the terms he was negotiating with the team pale in comparison to the ones Purdy is trying to hammer out.
‘The only difference is, a quarterback’s contract is significantly and astronomically different than a tight end’s contract,’ Kittle said, smiling. ‘Just trying to be realistic with him and trying to connect it as best I can.’
Kittle added advising Purdy was a fairly simple process, as they ‘have a lot of things in common’ about their careers to date.
‘No one really had high expectations for either of us, and we both exceeded those expectations,’ Kittle said. ‘I think he kind of took a rocket ship a little bit faster than I did, mine was over the course of several years. His was over the course of like six games.’
That said, Purdy’s negotiations have been particularly unique, as he has been among the NFL’s lowest-paid starting quarterbacks. He was the final pick in the 2022 NFL Draft and signed a four-year, rookie-scale deal worth just under $3.74 million.
Purdy has earned performance-based pay throughout his career and saw his final-year salary increase to just under $5.35 million due to a ‘proven performance escalator,’ per Spotrac.com. Still, he could potentially make nearly 10 times more than that in average annual value (AAV) on a long-term deal with the 49ers, so he remains among the league’s most underpaid signal-callers.
One might think that would make Purdy eager to get a deal done and willing to hold out to put pressure on the 49ers. Instead, he has attended the team’s offseason activities so far, a move that Kittle believes is creating goodwill in San Francisco’s locker room, which lost numerous key free agents during the offseason.
‘I’m happy that we don’t have a bunch of guys holding out for contracts,’ Kittle said. ‘I’m glad that we are not having a super drama-filled offseason. I think every year of my career we’ve had a quarterback controversy at some point. And to not have that, it’s going great.
‘And just when you have everybody in the building or the majority of the guys in the building, just the energy in the locker room is fantastic, the weight room is awesome, guys are working really hard. We have a lot of new free agents this year, so you want to meet everybody. You want everybody to get to know you before you get into the grind of training camp.’