HOUSTON TEXANS MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 26, 2025

George Kittle

Texans - 26, 49ers - 15

Q. Let's just go to the touchdown catch you had. Tight catch. Did you think it would be very uplifting for you guys?

GEORGE KITTLE: Yeah, it was really fun. It was just -- that's tough. Basically, I read the safeties. If it's a single high, I'm across the field. Split safeties, I'm down the middle.

Mac could not have put a better ball out there. Literally hit me. I didn't even have to adjust. Hit me in the back side number. Perfect ball. When you get the score right before half and you know you're going to get the ball again, it's an opportunity for us to lap them. We came out in the second half and went three and out. Didn't get the lap that we wanted to get.

Q. The touchdown catch, was that --

GEORGE KITTLE: Mac told me he was throwing to me. Jake, just sticky fingers. I'm glad he caught it. I would have been mad if he'd have tipped it up and it went out of bounds. It's good for the tight ends to score on National Tight Ends Day.

Q. When you're on the bench and the defense is having trouble getting off the field, how do you try to stay engaged, try to stay focused?

GEORGE KITTLE: The first half is tough because we had 12 plays in the first half until the last drive. We didn't do anything to help our defense in the entire first half. I thought our defense was playing at a really high level. They were doing bend but don't break. Their kicker had four field goals. If your defense is holding them to four field goals -- they didn't punt once either, right?

At the very end, right? Would you have taken a safety there?

Q. Not my decision.

GEORGE KITTLE: I'm just curious. But, I mean, I thought our defense played really well for the pieces lost during the game, guys who had to come out during the game, guys who came in during the game, guys who were missing. I thought our defense played really well. They were flying around, hitting people.

If you're holding a team to four field goals and two touchdowns, our offense has to score points. When you're three and out, three and out, three and out, three and out, we're not doing anything to help our young defense who is adjusting and trying to figure out the way they want to play football. This is really on the offense. I was very proud of how our defense played today.

Q. You ran the ball so well the previous game. Just a different defensive front, different schemes?

GEORGE KITTLE: When you have 12 plays in the first half, you can't get a rhythm. You can't run the ball. That's what it is. How many attempts did Christian really have? We just didn't have any attempts.

So, like, the run game is because you can stay on the field, you convert third downs. You're on the field, you're having ten-play drives, that's the run game.

Credit to them, yes, they completely took us out of it because, again, we had 12 plays until the last drive. So it's like we couldn't get Christian going. We couldn't get our run game going. I still think, like, we're still getting decent chunks, but it's just like we're not converting on third down so we're not running the ball. Second half, we have to throw the ball every time.

Q. Does your mind get curious on how the offense will work with Ricky back, with Brock back, and with Brandon back?

GEORGE KITTLE: I mean, I love playing football with Ricky because he's like KB and he's so full of energy and so full of love of the game. So that's a guy I love playing with. I mean, I think I've said a thousand nice things about Brock. You guys know exactly how I feel about him. So, you know, he's the best operator of our offense I've ever seen. So, yeah. And then Aiyuk, we paid him $30 million for a reason because that's how good he is.

You can daydream and think with that stuff. I can't wait to start playing with those guys again. Currently, we're playing with what we've got. What we've got is enough to win football games, especially today.

But when you operate the way we did in the first three or four drives, which is just, honestly, really, really bad is what I would say from MAs to procedure penalties to holding. Whatever they were, we just played bad football on offense today.

Q. George, Kyle talked about coming in tomorrow having a chip on your shoulder. (No microphone)?

GEORGE KITTLE: I'm a big 24-hour rule guy. Whoever started that was a genius. You can be sad and depressed about it for 24 hours and let it go. You can't do anything to change it. All you can do is learn from it. That's all we're going to do, I hope.

There's just opportunities all over the football field. There is. There are so many places to learn from it. It's a humbling sport. Look at yourself in the mirror. What did I do wrong? What can I get better at? If it's something you're going to let anchor you down, it's going to be tough football for us moving forward.

Hopefully, we have guys who can let it go after our meeting tomorrow, and we can move into Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday with a fresh start. Hopefully, there is a chip on our shoulder. Hopefully we practice hard. I think we will. We have bright guys in the building, aggressive guys in the building, guys that want to win.

Q. George, I know this is above your head, but in the past you have --

GEORGE KITTLE: Like this? I don't make enough money to talk about it. You're going to ask me about it anyway.

Q. In the past, you guys have been bolstered by trade deadline acquisitions. Do you think your team could use a shot in the arm like that? Would that have been helpful?

GEORGE KITTLE: Would you have asked me that last week when we held the Falcons to ten points? I don't think so. I think we have the right guys. Let's talk about who else got hurt on the defensive line. I don't know.

We'll see what happens, but I think we have a lot of the right guys in the building, a lot of guys who like to play football the right way. I think Saleh gets our young guys playing the right way. The more reps the guys get, the better they'll get.

But I don't ever worry about a trade deadline thing. There's nothing I can do. I'm not going to go into Kyle's office and say we need to trade for somebody. I just want to get out and play more football because that was a horrible first half. It was a really bad performance by our offense, and we left our young defense out to dry today.

I thought they played really well. I said before anyone else showed up, it was just Cam in here, like, they played the whole day, they played bend but don't break. They gave up two touchdowns and four field goals. Our offense has to score points. I've said that since the start. We have a veteran offense that needs to score. Yes, we're missing some key guys, obviously, but we have to score points. We didn't help our defense out at all, the entire day.

Thank you.