'A ref was running over to break it up and popped his hammy' – George Kittle drops wild story about Jauan Jennings' wrongful ejection
San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Jauan Jennings, a former Tennessee Vols standout, finished 25 receiving yards short of his first 1,000-yard season due to a wrongful ejection in last year's final game of the regular season. Jennings was ejected after getting involved in a scuffle that was started by a couple of Arizona Cardinals players. The NFL […]
San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Jauan Jennings, a former Tennessee Vols standout, finished 25 receiving yards short of his first 1,000-yard season due to a wrongful ejection in last year's final game of the regular season.
Jennings was ejected after getting involved in a scuffle that was started by a couple of Arizona Cardinals players.
The NFL essentially admitted that Jennings shouldn't have been ejected by declining to fine the former Vol the following week (both of the Cardinals players that were involved in the scuffle, however, were fined).
49ers tight end George Kittle joined Bussin with the Boys this week and he dropped a story about Jennings' ejection from his point of view (which includes an unfortunate injury for an official who was trying to break up the scuffle).
"The fun thing about that game, the last game of the year, would have been Jauan Jennings was going for 1,000 yards for the first time in his career," said Kittle. "He got ejected. He was like 30 yards away, and Jauan’s a blocker — you pull up any highlight of that dude, he’s an asshole. He was 25 yards away and got ejected in like the second quarter. Our whole game plan was just to feed Jauan to break 1,000, which are really fun game plans to be a part of. Everyone wanted Jauan to break 1,000.
"So he blocked a dude on a run — I don’t know if it was a pass or a run — he's blocking the dude and pancakes him. Then the dude gets up, and they start fighting. They both get 15-yard penalties, and [Jauan] didn’t throw a punch once. He gets jumped by like three Cardinals players, so there's two penalties offsetting. Then, the next play, it’s an outside zone. He’s blocking one of the Cardinals DBs, who’s yelling at him, and literally just grabs him and throws him down. So they’re doing that, and Jauan gets ejected. But he never got fined for it, because the NFL reviewed the film and was like he did nothing wrong, he shouldn’t have been ejected. So he missed out on a 1,000-yard season for no reason."
"The best part about this play was a ref was running over to break it up and he popped his hammy — right in front of me," added Kittle. "I’m jogging over, and he’s in front of me, and he just grabs his hamstring and goes down. I’m like, 'Oh, sir, sir, are you okay?' He’s like, 'Ah, no, I’m not.' I’m like, 'Oh no, dude.' So I didn’t get over there (to the scuffle with Jennings). I was picking up a ref and helping him off the sideline."
The wrongful ejection doesn't change that Jennings had the best season of his career in 2024, but it's still unfortunate that the former Tennessee wide receiver came up 25 yards short of what would've been a huge career milestone.