Tight end is the position most fans skip when they buy a jersey, and San Francisco is the one city where that never happens. George Kittle has spent his whole career making the case that a tight end can be the loudest player on a good offense, and number 85 has become the 49ers jersey people buy when they do not want the obvious quarterback pick. If you are shopping for a George Kittle jersey, the useful question is which of San Francisco's many colorways you want to live with, because the 49ers run more alternates than almost anyone.
Why 85 outsells most tight ends in the league
Kittle went in the fifth round in 2017 out of Iowa, which is roughly where teams draft blocking specialists and hope for the best. Two years later he set the single-season receiving yards record for a tight end. What kept the jersey selling after that was never just the production. It was the blocking, the fact that he treats a run play twenty yards from the ball like a personal grudge, and the general willingness to be the most visible person on the field at all times.
That gives the jersey a different feel than a skill-position purchase. Buying a receiver jersey is a bet on highlights. Buying a Kittle jersey reads more like a statement about how you think football should be played, which is a large part of why it holds up in a city that has cycled through quarterbacks around him.
Scarlet, gold, black: how the 49ers colorways differ
San Francisco's palette is unusual because gold is a real uniform color rather than trim, and that gives the Kittle jersey more genuinely different looks than most players have.
Scarlet. The home jersey and the one that reads as 49ers from any distance. The 2022 scarlet is the cleanest version of the current design, and it is the safe answer if you are buying one jersey.
Gold inverted. The 2022 gold inverted Legend flips the usual balance so gold carries the body instead of the numbers. It is the boldest thing in the lineup and the one that gets asked about most in a crowd. It is also the least versatile, so buy it knowing that.
Black. San Francisco's blackouts include a straight black FUSE 50th patch throwback and the black-white FUSE with the four-star captain's patch and the Golden Gate Bridge patch. The bridge patch is the detail worth paying attention to; it is the most specifically San Francisco thing on any jersey the team makes.
White and pink. The white-pink version is the outlier, cut smaller than the rest of the lineup and worth sizing up on. It sits closer to a fashion jersey than a game jersey.
The black Kittle jersey question
A large share of people searching for this jersey are specifically after the black one, and it is worth explaining why. Scarlet is a commitment. It says 49ers fan and nothing else, and it does not pair with much. Black does the opposite: it works as a normal piece of clothing, and the team identity lives in the numbers and patches instead of in the whole garment.
This is the same split that drives the blackout market across the league. It is why the alternate colorway is often the second jersey people buy, whether that is a Justin Jefferson Vikings jersey in black rather than purple, or a Jalen Hurts Eagles jersey in the alternate rather than midnight green. If you already own a scarlet, the black FUSE is the obvious next one. If you own neither, start with scarlet.
San Francisco 49ers #85 George Kittle Black-White FUSE With 4-Star C Patch Golden Gate Bridge Patch Alternate Jersey
$69.95
Shop Now →Sizing a tight end jersey
Jerseys are cut around shoulder pads regardless of position, so a Kittle jersey fits the same as any other: generous in the chest, shorter in the body than a normal shirt. Take your usual size for wearing over a tee, and go up one if it is going over a hoodie for a night game at Levi's Stadium, where it gets colder than visitors expect.
Two exceptions in this lineup. The white-pink version runs small and should be sized up regardless of how you plan to wear it. And the toddler and youth cuts follow standard kids apparel sizing without the pad allowance, so the size-up rule does not carry over. For a George Kittle youth jersey, one size up covers a growth spurt and two does not fit at all.
Care: cold water, inside out, no fabric softener, hang dry. Stitched twill numbers fail from heat, always at the corners, and once they curl there is no recovering them.
What to wear it with
Scarlet needs restraint everywhere else. Dark denim or black bottoms, a neutral shoe, and a fitted layer underneath rather than a bulky one. Red is already doing the work; a second bright color turns the fit into a theme party.
Gold is harder and worth being honest about. The inverted gold jersey does not blend into anything, so treat it as the centerpiece and keep everything else black or cream. It photographs extremely well and works badly as a background piece, which is the correct trade for a jersey you buy on purpose.
The black versions are the easy ones. Anything you would wear with a black hoodie works, and the Golden Gate patch gives the fit a detail worth looking at up close. This is the version that travels, in the sense that you can wear it in a city where nobody follows the 49ers and it still reads as clothing rather than as fan gear. That flexibility is the same reason a Joe Burrow Bengals jersey in black gets bought by people who have never been to Cincinnati.
Start here
Buy scarlet if this is your first 49ers jersey and you want the one people recognize instantly. Buy the black-white FUSE with the Golden Gate patch if you want a jersey with more going on and more places to wear it. The gold inverted is the third jersey, not the first. Everything else in the same color families sits in the San Francisco 49ers jerseys collection, which is worth browsing before you commit, if only to see how differently the scarlet and the gold read side by side.
