It appears the San Francisco 49ers are in for an offseason full of difficult decisions.
The salary cap and quarterback Brock Purdy's pending contract extension were always going to make the 2025 offseason difficult, but the team's sluggish 5-5 start to the 2024 season is an indicator that significant changes need to be made to its roster.
One of those changes could be parting ways with wide receiver Deebo Samuel.
It's nearly impossible to imagine the Kyle Shanahan 49ers without Samuel. His rookie season was 2019, the year the club reversed a sustained streak of mediocrity and catapulted to the Super Bowl. This year we got a glimpse of what ultimately made him an All-Pro in 2021.
He is a one-of-a-kind playmaker whose 1,405 receiving yards, 365 rushing yards and 14 touchdowns in 2021 could be a statistic we never see from a wide receiver again.
Samuel was also a consistent offensive player for San Francisco, and Shanahan wasn't afraid to lean on him when the team needed to generate offense.
It appears that version of Samuel may not be around for the 49ers this season. In nine games, he had 33 receptions, 490 yards and one touchdown on 52 targets. He also carried 27 times, for just 79 yards and a touchdown. Of his 27 carries, only two have generated either a touchdown or a first down, and his longest run of the season is just 12 yards.
Sunday's game against the Seattle Seahawks, where the 49ers were without tight end George Kittle, presented Samuel's best opportunity to make a big impact. Instead, he hauled in four balls for 22 yards and lost a yard on his only carry of the game.
Samuel's yards after catch per reception are at a career-low 7.7 so far this season. His yards per route run of 1.98 is the second-worst mark of his career. He also forced just eight misses on 33 catches after forcing 40 on 73 catches last year. That trend continues in the running game, where he has eight missed tackles with 27 runs this year, up from 22 missed tackles with 43 runs a season ago, according to Pro Football Focus.
The explosiveness that made Samuel the NFL's most dangerous playmaker early in his career appears to have eluded him. Given the physicality that defined his playing ability, it's hard to blame him.
However, the 49ers need to start finding new ways to create offense, and parting ways with Samuel is looking more and more of a necessity if they want to start the next chapter of San Francisco football.
If they designate Samuel after June 1st, they will have a dead cap hit of $10,751,753 while saving $5,206,105 against the cap per Over the Cap.
With the type of high-priced contracts the 49ers have, that extra $5 million would be helpful, and Samuel could find a new opportunity with a team that can maximize him in other ways.
It also opens the door for players like Ricky Pearsall, Jacob Cowing and Jauan Jennings to be more involved in the next evolution of the 49ers' offense.
Parting ways with the 2021 All-Pro wouldn't be easy, and it might be the biggest move the 49ers could make to signal that a new era has arrived. However, given everything we know eleven weeks into the 2024 season, this could be a necessity.
