Kansas City Chiefs: Players To Watch Against The San Francisco 49ers

Safety Eric Murray

The 49ers have an up and coming tight end in George Kittle. He remains as one of their top targets for Jimmy Garoppolo in the offense which Kansas City cannot ignore. While he’s not your Travis Kelce or Rob Gronkowski caliber of tight ends, he has the opportunity to make some money against the Chiefs.

Kansas City’s defense has struggled to cover tight ends this season. Just last week against Pittsburgh the team allowed tight end, Jesse James, to catch five passes for 138 yards and a touchdown. Much of this has to do with Bob Sutton placing Eric Murray in coverage against tight ends.

This has been a failure of an experiment since last season. You might remember last year when Kansas City traveled to Oakland and Murray was torched all game by Jared Cook allowing six catches for 107 yards. Murray struggles against tall, physical tight ends and he will face another one on Sunday against San Francisco.

Unless Sutton makes a change in his coverage assignments, we could be looking at Murray vs. Kittle. Shanahan and the 49ers offense will look to expose this weakness in the defense as they will have to try and keep up with the Kansas City offense. If Murray is going to prove that he belongs as a starter, he must show that he can do better than what we have seen up to this point in his career.