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San Francisco 49ers star tight end George Kittle spent an extensive amount of time in his hotel bathroom on Thursday morning.
But it’s probably not for the reason that you think.
Instead, the All-Pro locked himself in a bathroom for 18 minutes after a fire alarm went off at the Hilton Lake Las Vegas Resort & Spa, waking players just after 6 a.m.
Kittle said that the incident particularly bothered star teammates Christian McCaffrey and Nick Bosa, who are “notorious” for their morning routines.
“It had to be them,” Kittle said when asked who was most bothered by the incident. “You don’t want to wake the sleeping bear. But Christian was not happy too.”
The fire alarm was ruled a false alarm.
“I think there’s no way it’s random,” McCaffrey said. “It’s part of it. It’s just more wood thrown on the fire.”
The rude awakening is far from the first thing to go awry for San Francisco this week.
Niners head coach Kyle Shanahan expressed his displeasure with the quality of the team’s practice field leading up to Super Bowl 58.
“We’re here. We’re practicing on it,” Shanahan said Wednesday afternoon. “Everyone has their preferences. I wish things were better, but we’ll deal with the field how it is.”
San Francisco could have shared the Raiders’ facility with the Kansas City Chiefs. But Shanahan said the change wasn’t worth it.
“We’d have to go too early in the morning (and) mess everything up,” he said. “This is the best choice we’ve got.”
The NFL uses a method called the “Clegg test” to evaluate the condition of turf before games (a higher score means a firmer field). CBS Sports reports the field at UNLV received a score of 50, while the 49ers prefer one that comes in closer to 70.
Safe to say things are not going according to plan for San Francisco in the lead up the big game.