Players continue to use smelling salts despite NFL rule: "It's a meathead thing"

During training camp, the NFL sent a memo to teams prohibiting them from providing smelling salts to players, citing a player-safety issue. The league, though, couldn’t ban ammonia packets without approval from the NFLPA.

Thus, players, including 49ers tight end George Kittle, are still allowed to use smelling salts as long as they provide their own supply.

Kittle, who jokingly said he “considered retirement” after hearing of the ban, uses smelling salts before every offensive possession. He told the San Francisco Chronicle that at least half of his teammates “ use them most of the time .”

Kittle supplied his teammates with the inhalants during the preseason but kept running out of them. So, he vowed to empty an “old-school” bucket of cheese balls and fill it with smelling sal