SANTA CLARA, Calif. — No one is quite sure how to quantify his value. Not the teammates who love him or the rivals who hate facing him. He plays a position nearly extinct in the NFL, and he records few statistics, so even people whose jobs are to value football players can struggle to explain exactly what he means to the juggernaut San Francisco 49ers.
But Kyle Juszczyk — a 32-year-old fullback, a “wife guy” who went to Harvard, as everyone around him will remind you — is vital to the best offense in the NFL. “Juice,” as he’s better known, can run, catch, block, teach, sneak, line up anywhere, hold for kicks, fix problems mid-play, set up his famous teammates and help unlock the schematic genius of Coach Kyle Shanahan. His skill set is hard to see on TV, and the data collected by the computer chips in his shoulder pads doesn’t really stand out. But he’s there on the field, down after down, pushing the 49ers forward in subtle defiance of the human instinct to derive value from numbers.
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“He’s instrumental in so much that we do,” said Chris Foerster, San Francisco’s run game coordinator and offensive line coach.
“He literally can do anything,” tight end George Kittle said. “He’s been a guy that we’ve been able to build [our offense] around.”
Yet even Juszczyk (pronounced USE-check) sometimes doubts his own value. In the past few years, the 49ers have assembled football’s version of the Avengers, and Juszczyk’s touches have declined from about 34 per year to 19 this season. He occasionally wonders: How much am I really contributing to my team’s success?
“I’m like any other player; I want to touch the ball,” Juszczyk said last week. “I always have a goal, a number, because numbers are just easy. ... But I think I’ve had a greater appreciation, probably in my last three years or so, of the impact that I do have on this team outside of just touching the ball.”
The story of Juszczyk’s growth is not just a story of the 49ers’ offense, which this season scored more points than any other and has put San Francisco on the doorstep of the Super Bowl. It is also a story of how, in the lighter, faster modern NFL, a fullback has carved out a long and lucrative career that shows no signs of stopping. Juszczyk insists he feels better than he did at 26.
“There’s not a second that goes by in the day that I’m not thinking about, ‘How can I use this time to help my longevity?’ ” he said. “That’s a big thing for me — longevity. I want to live until I’m 150.”
IN 2017, SAN FRANCISCO still hadn’t regained its footing from the successful-but-dysfunctional tenure of Jim Harbaugh. The team had finished the previous two seasons 5-11 and 2-14, and ESPN had ranked the organization as the worst in North American professional sports. CEO Jed York bet big on Shanahan, a first-time head coach, to fix it.
Early on, Shanahan and General Manager John Lynch created a “vision statement” for the rebuild. They decided that, to reestablish the “49er Way,” they would prioritize finding players with 10 characteristics, including “toughness/physicality” and “contagious competitiveness.” In their first free agent class, they signed a player they thought checked every box, even though landing him required $21 million over four years — the richest fullback contract in NFL history.
Two years later, a 49ers personnel executive, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the team had overpaid for Juszczyk. But the executive also believed he was worth it.
“[Juszczyk is] made of the right type of stuff,” he said. “Smart, hard-working ... and he could help change the culture of the locker room.”
Over the past seven seasons, as the 49ers have become one of the NFL’s best teams, Shanahan has used Juszczyk as a chess piece. Shanahan’s version of the West Coast offense relies on trusty tools, such as presnap motion and play-action, but his greatest skill may be game-planning to exploit the weaknesses of each defense.
One of Shanahan’s edges is personnel. Most of the NFL relies on light personnel, with more wide receivers, and defenses have evolved to limit explosive passing attacks by using two-deep coverages. But Shanahan uses heavier personnel, with more running backs and tight ends, and he runs the ball more often. Those tendencies force defenses to make difficult choices. They can try to stop the run with a light box or bring in bigger, slower players, which makes them more vulnerable to the pass — and no matter the choice, the defense will be less prepared to stop it.
San Francisco’s offense is full of versatile all-pros: Kittle, running back Christian McCaffrey, wideouts Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk. Juszczyk is a unique complement; he makes the personnel heavy. He’s 6-foot-2, 235 pounds and can help disguise the intent of any play by lining up at fullback, running back, tight end or wide receiver — and he can always motion to a different position before the snap. The uncertainty exasperates the 49ers’ opponents.
“You’re trying to read your keys, and at the same time sometimes your keys lie to you because of what [the 49ers] do,” then-Washington coach Ron Rivera said in December.
Or Juszczyk can just bulldoze dudes. One of the foundations of Shanahan’s offense is a run concept called “outside zone.” It’s a play in which offensive linemen caravan toward the sideline, blocking zones rather than specific defenders, and a running back has to hit the open hole. The scheme can be boom or bust. One of the ways a defense can torpedo it is by setting the edge to prevent the running back from getting outside. But Kittle believes no defense can set the edge if he and Juszczyk are combo blocking.
“We’re successful 95 percent of the time, in my opinion,” Kittle said. “Just that connection that we have without having to talk about it or do anything, it’s special. … [We can block from] all angles, different formations. It’s just a very special moment to share.”
Defenses also have to respect Juszczyk as a playmaker, even when he is lined up as a wide receiver. He has shockingly soft hands, and in 2019, when he caught a slot fade for 49 yards, NBC broadcaster Cris Collinsworth yelled, in disbelief, “Who in their right mind runs these kinds of routes with a fullback?”
But Juszczyk and his thinning rank of peers are getting fewer touches these days. In 2014, fullbacks accounted for 1.4 percent of all offensive snaps during the NFL season, according to TruMedia. That figure has decreased steadily to a low this season of 0.7 percent — more than half of which came from just four players: Juszczyk, Houston’s Andrew Beck, Miami’s Alec Ingold and Baltimore’s Patrick Ricard.
If San Francisco had to replace Juszczyk, it would probably convert a big running back or a lighter tight end, as it did when Juszczyk was hurt briefly in 2019. But there’s no natural successor because there are just too few fullbacks in modern football. Many high schools and colleges run spread offenses with lighter personnel, and not many kids grow up playing fullback. TruMedia’s college fullback data only goes back to 2021, but it shows a clear decline. Excluding the service academies, which use the position more than every other Division I program combined, fullbacks accounted for 0.20 percent of offensive snaps in 2021, 0.19 percent in 2022 and 0.14 percent in 2023.
Since 2018, only one player has been drafted as a fullback (Baltimore’s Ben Mason), according to Pro Football Reference.
“I’m scared of, when I do retire, what’s going happen with the position?” Juszczyk said. “I don’t know if it’s going to continue on.”
In the meantime, Juszczyk has had to adapt his mind in the same way he has had to adapt his body to fit the many roles that fall under the umbrella of fullback. In January 2020, in the first round of the playoffs, San Francisco beat up Minnesota, and Juszczyk felt like “it was one of the best games of my career. I remember, I blocked my a-- off. I put so many guys in different positions.” But he focused on two numbers: 50 snaps, zero touches.
Two days later, NFL Network analyst Brian Baldinger did a nearly seven-minute analysis praising Juszczyk for how he had “affected the game in all 50 snaps.”
“I feel like that was one of those aha moments,” Juszczyk said. “Touching the ball less, it kind of forced me to open up my eyes. [I’ve been] finding my value in other areas and having a greater appreciation for it.”
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But Juszczyk has learned not to fight frustration, to accept it when it comes.
“I think that’s just the nature of being a competitor,” he said. “It’s a good thing because … I think that’s what helps drive me to continue to push to be the player I am.”
And he feels comfortable bringing it up with his boss.
“I love that he will come and talk to me about it every once in a while,” Shanahan said. “The cool thing about Kyle is, when I’m honest with him and I tell him the reasons [he’s not getting the ball more], he doesn’t disagree. He understands [why his teammates] get the ball a little bit more. Then it’s easy, because he’s a smart guy who’ll do anything to help us win.”
ON JAN. 13, JUSZCZYK was sitting on the couch at home during the 49ers’ bye, watching the first round of the playoffs, when Taylor Swift walked on screen wearing a jersey jacket his wife, Kristin, had designed. The broadcasters joked that Swift must have received a custom gift from Nike. Juszczyk took to social media, writing several posts: “Arriving in her jacket made by Kristin Juszczyk” and “She’s an absolute star!”
The Juszczyks went viral. Kristin gained 400,000 followers on Instagram. Us Weekly wrote a story detailing the timeline of their relationship. People magazine blogged about the fullback’s supportive posts, and reporters crowded around him at work. It was probably the most famous he had ever been.
The next week, San Francisco nosed by Green Bay in the divisional round as Juszczyk had another relatively anonymous night: 26 snaps, zero touches. But he threw several key blocks, including two for McCaffrey on touchdown runs. He reminded a tight end to go in motion before a play.
Even if stats are crude shorthand for value, it’s possible Juszczyk, who has always measured his productivity by touches and yards, has just been looking at the wrong ones. By advanced metrics, this year was one of the best of his career.
Yet Juszczyk’s true value remains elusive. He’s the only player left from his free agent class, and his presence has helped foster the culture Shanahan and Lynch set out to create. He signed a new deal in 2021 that ties him to the team through 2025. The organization has put his face on stadium banners, and the fan base has carried over a tradition to celebrate him by hollering a chant that sounds like a boo but isn’t: “JUUUUICE!”
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“I feel like I’ve really been embraced,” Juszczyk said. “Not too many teams do you really hear much about the fullback. A lot of fans probably couldn’t even tell you their names. But it’s really cool that here … all the [49ers] faithful are very aware of me and my name. … It means a lot.”
This season, 49ers fans have stayed ready. If Juszczyk touches the ball, at home or on the road, thousands of voices thunder in appreciation: “JUUUUICE!” The loudest was probably in October, when he scored a touchdown against Dallas, but if he makes a splashy play this postseason, cover your ears. Maybe the best way to quantify Juszczyk’s value is with decibels.
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