George Kittle is going to Australia. Whether he plays there is still an open question, but as of Wednesday morning, the San Francisco 49ers have answered the one that comes before it.
The star tight end will make the trip to Melbourne after two positive days of practice and is trending toward playing in the Sept. 10 opener against the Los Angeles Rams, NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported as the 49ers team prepared to leave the Bay Area. Defensive end Nick Bosa, who has been working back from a knee issue, is also on the flight.
The #49ers leave today for their game vs the #Rams in Australia, and star TE George Kittle will make the trip after 2 positive days of practice, sources say. Kittle is trending in the right direction to play.
DE Nick Bosa, ramping up with his knee, will also make the trip. pic.twitter.com/4MwRMIRLj5
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) September 2, 2026
That is a long way from a guarantee, and both the team and the player have been careful not to treat it like one. But it settles a question that head coach Kyle Shanahan said on Monday he wanted resolved before the plane left, and it puts Kittle in position to do something that looked unlikely when he went down in January.
The timeline that got him on the flight
The injury happened Jan. 11 in San Francisco’s wild-card win over the Philadelphia Eagles, when Kittle tore his Achilles and went to injured reserve. He had surgery three days later, and spent the offseason insisting Week 1 was a realistic target rather than a fantasy.
The 49ers kept that door open without ever committing to it. Kittle came off the physically unable to perform list on Aug. 23 and was back on the field that day, though only for individual work.
The timing mattered: Activating him before the roster cutdown meant he would not be required to sit the first four games, which is the price of opening the season on reserve/PUP. From there the steps came quickly.
Kittle told reporters earlier in August that his GPS numbers were approaching his pre-injury speed and that padded practice was one of the last hurdles left. Shanahan, for his part, said at one point that Kittle had “taken a step back” without elaborating, and the team stayed cautious about naming him ready for the opener.
This week, he took team reps for the first time since the injury, and Wednesday’s report characterized the two sessions as positive. Kittle has missed time before — he sat out six regular-season games in 2025 with assorted injuries before the Achilles ended his year — but nothing on this scale.
The usual recovery window for a torn Achilles runs roughly nine to 12 months, which is why Kittle’s push for Week 1 drew so much skepticism. The 32-year-old played 11 games last season and finished with 57 catches for 628 yards and seven touchdowns, a year after posting 1,106 yards and eight scores in 2024.
Shanahan’s three-practice test
Shanahan laid out the plan plainly on Monday, and it was less a medical protocol than a scheduling one. The 49ers had three practices before the flight, and both Kittle and Bosa would be worked through them on staggered loads rather than going full speed three days in a row.
“Hopefully these three days we have, these three practices will go the right way,” Shanahan said.
The more revealing part of his answer was about the trip itself. Shanahan said that if the staff did not believe Kittle would play, it would be far better to make that call before leaving than after, and he pointed out that being away from the team for a week in Melbourne would cost a rehabbing player meeting time and training structure, not just camaraderie.
That framing is why Wednesday’s report carries more weight than a typical “traveling with the team” note. Shanahan set up the three practices as a decision point, and the decision went Kittle’s way.
The Australia math
The logistics of this game are unlike anything else on the schedule, and they cut in opposite directions for the two teams.
San Francisco is flying out Wednesday and will land Friday to continue preparing for what will be a Thursday night kickoff in the United States and a Friday morning game in Melbourne. The Rams, by contrast, are not leaving until next Wednesday, a full week after the 49ers.
For a healthy roster that is a debate about jet lag. For Kittle, it is the reason the travel decision was never a formality.
He said earlier this month that it would make more sense to stay in the Bay Area than to sit in an Australian hotel if he was not going to play, given the length of the flight, and he has been consistent that the goal is Week 1 without the goal being the whole season.
“I’m just going to keep that as my goal and then we’ll adjust from there,” Kittle said.
Bosa’s situation runs on a parallel track. Shanahan said Monday the two players were on slightly different schedules across the three practices, and Bosa is still ramping up with his knee. His presence on the flight suggests the 49ers believe he has a path to the opener too, but the reporting is thinner on him than on Kittle, and it should be read that way.
What’s waiting in Melbourne
The Los Angeles Rams will bring a defensive front that got considerably scarier over the weekend. Aaron Donald announced Sunday that he is coming out of retirement to rejoin the team, ending a retirement that began in March 2024.
The team site traced the comeback to head coach Sean McVay asking Donald for his read on Myles Garrett while the Rams were exploring a trade for the edge rusher, and McVay had been dropping hints since training camp that the arrow was pointing up. Donald did not practice Monday, which McVay said was planned, according to the Rams’ injury update.
None of that changes what Kittle has to do to get on the field, but it changes what the field looks like if he does. A tight end coming back from an Achilles tear will spend a good portion of his snaps blocking, and the Rams’ line is now a very different assignment than it was two weeks ago.
What comes next
The honest answer is that nothing is decided. Kittle is on the plane because the 49ers wanted the option, and the option only matters if the next week of practice in Melbourne goes as well as the last two days in Santa Clara did.
Shanahan has not named him a starter, Rapoport’s report stopped short of saying he will play and the team has been consistent that the first game is not worth risking the other 16. What has changed is the shape of the question.
In January, the conversation was about whether Kittle would play in 2026 at all. In August it was about whether he would make the trip.
Now it is about a single week of practice on the other side of the world, and for the first time since he went down against the Eagles, the timeline is measured in days rather than months.
If he plays, it will be one of the fastest returns from this injury the league has seen from a player at his position. If he doesn’t, the 49ers have already said what the fallback is, and so has Kittle: Week 2, and adjust from there.
