Daniel Kilgore: 49ers are headed in right direction, and “I wanted to be part of it”

Jimmy Garoppolo got what he wanted when the 49ers signed center Daniel Kilgore to a contract extension Wednesday. Kilgore, though, didn’t get all the hoopla that accompanied Garoppolo’s signing last week.

“I’m back home waiting for my private jet to fly out to the Bay Area,” Kilgore said on a conference call from his home in Tennessee, via Cam Inman of Bay Area News Group. “It’s 2018. It’s DocuSign. I was in the middle of working out when I signed my contract. But I would take the private jet.”

Slated to become a free agent in March, Kilgore didn’t know when the season ended what the future held for him. But once the 49ers indicated they wanted him back, Kilgore was all in, saying, “This team is heading in the right direction, and I wanted to be a part of it.”

The 49ers won their final five games of the 2017 season with Garoppolo as their starting quarterback. Last week, San Francisco made Garoppolo the highest-paid player in NFL history based on highest per yer average on a long-term deal.

It has 49ers’ faithful excited about the future.

“I don’t want to say that we’re going to be a playoff-contending team or a Super Bowl-winning team,” Kilgore said. “I will say this: You will a team that’s going to work it’s ass off.”