For the 49ers’ Brock Purdy and George Kittle, thar’s gold in them thar pro football hills

We’ve experienced a 500-year flood and a 666-year derecho in Cedar Rapids within the last 17 years. You can think you’ve seen it all, but then you always see something else.

Mike Tyson biting off a piece of Evander Holyfield’s ear is something I’ve only begun to shake off. New Jersey joining the Big Ten and getting followed a decade later by Los Angeles still is taking time to process.

Then there’s this:

Tight end George Kittle played at Iowa. He was at the tail end of Iowa’s 2012 recruiting class.

Brock Purdy wasn’t a 3-star recruit out of Arizona when he signed to play quarterback at Iowa State. He obviously was a great get for the Cyclones, but was ranked the No. 50 QB of his 2018 class by 247Sports.com. Alabama’s offer to Purdy was as a preferred walk-on.

Purdy threw for 81 touchdowns and 12,170 yards at Iowa State, which ain’t chopped liver. Ten of Kittle’s 42 catches over his last two seasons with the Hawkeyes were for TDs.

No one ever pointed to either in their college days and said “Fella, you are gonna get paid so well once you’re established in the NFL.”

Kittle was the fifth-round, No. 146 pick of the San Francisco 49ers in the 2017 NFL draft. That was 538 catches, 7,380 yards and 45 touchdowns ago.

Purdy was the 262nd and final pick of the 2022 draft, also selected by San Francisco. That was 9,518 passing yards, 64 touchdowns and four postseason victories ago. In three years.

So the last shall be first, or at least close enough.

On April 30, Kittle signed a four-year, $76.4 million contract extension with the Niners with $40 million guaranteed.

"In 2017, our first year with the 49ers, we selected a skinny tight end from Iowa whom we were really excited about," San Francisco General Manager John Lynch said in a statement. "We had high hopes, but no one knew that he would become the player that he is today.“

Next year, Kittle will be the first player to have spent 10 straight seasons with the team since 2017.

Last Friday, it was reported Purdy had agreed to a five-year, $265 million extension with $181 million in guarantees. You know what that sounds like? A lot of money, that’s what.

When Purdy hasn’t been throwing touchdown passes to Kittle, they’ve had fun tweaking each other, with one being a Cyclone and the other a Hawkeye. They, however, can put aside such parochial silliness and tool around the Bay Area in Rolls-Royces if they so desire. Heck, they can even afford California’s car insurance rates.

The $341 million the duo are totaling in contract extensions is enough to throw a military parade in Washington, D.C., every day for a week and almost have enough left to pay for the destruction the tanks do to the streets.

Ah, to have $341 million for walking-around money. Were it mine, I could afford a private jet to take me to all the exotic places I’ve only seen on television, places whose names I’ve never been able to correctly pronounce. Like Reykjavik or Marrakech or Des Moines.

I’d buy a doghouse made of marble and gold. Then I’d consider getting a dog.

I could even afford a pair of socks that match. Not just in color, but in existential purpose.

The reward for being the first sports writer to ever use the term “existential purpose” should be $341 million, but life isn’t fair.

Not that I begrudge Kittle or Purdy for their fortunes. Not a bit. The players are the game, not the odious collection of horse-thieves and stagecoach-robbers who own the teams.

Besides, both players have shared some of their wealth with causes like military nonprofits, an organization that is an advocate of children in foster care, cystic fibrosis research, and scholarships for students studying agriculture. Purdy is from suburban Phoenix, but knows America needs farmers.

Advice for incoming freshmen at Iowa and Iowa State: Befriend a classmate on your school’s football team who is entering with little fanfare. If you don’t become a tycoon yourself, you can at least be in one’s entourage.

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com