National Football League

Sam Darnold convinced 49ers teammate George Kittle has a haunted house

Published Jul. 16, 2023 10:00 p.m. ET

Sam Darnold is seeing ghosts again.

The new San Francisco 49ers quarterback told a podcast recently that when he first arrived in the Bay Area, he took up new teammate George Kittle's invitation to stay at Kittle's back house until Darnold found a place of his own. It seemed like a nice bonding opportunity for the former No. 3 overall pick and the four-time Pro Bowl tight end, but according to Darnold, things quickly went sideways.

"I woke up, it was like 3 a.m., went to go take a pee and, you know, came back, fell right asleep," Darnold said, via NBC Sports Bay Area. "And then, that next night, the same thing happened, and I couldn’t, like, I had to keep focusing on this thing … there was something else in the room."

Of course, this is the same Sam Darnold who, during the 2019 season with the New York Jets, was infamously caught on camera during a blowout loss against the New England Patriots saying that he was "seeing ghosts." The moment almost instantly went viral.

In the podcast interview, Darnold indirectly confirmed that he was just talking about Bill Belichick's vaunted Patriots defense and not actual spirits during that 2019 game, whereas he believes he actually saw something supernatural in Kittle's house.

"It was very creepy, and I had never dealt with anything like that before," Darnold said. "… It was just like super, super weird, and it just felt like when I woke up there was something, like, holding on to me, and then that next night, I … felt that something was in the room with me, and it was … the freakiest thing. I'm getting chills talking about it right now, but that's never happened to me before."

Darnold eventually moved out, but has been seeing hanging out with his new 49ers teammates in recent months, inncluding with Kittle and Christian McCaffrey courtside during Golden State Warriors playoff games. The former USC Trojans star figures to have a shot, albeit not a big one, at earning the 49ers starting quarterback role with young quarterbacks Brock Purdy and Trey Lance both recovering from major injuries.

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