49ers HC Kyle Shanahan Explains Ricky Pearsall's Lack of Production

Expectations for Ricky Pearsall's rookie season never should have been high.
Nov 10, 2024; Tampa, Florida, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Ricky Pearsall (14) celebrates after scoring a touchdown against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the first quarter at Raymond James Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images
Nov 10, 2024; Tampa, Florida, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Ricky Pearsall (14) celebrates after scoring a touchdown against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the first quarter at Raymond James Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images / Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images
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Expectations for Ricky Pearsall's rookie season never should have been high.

He missed almost all of training camp with a shoulder subluxation and then he got shot in the chest just a few days before the beginning of the regular season. And despite all that, he returned by Week 7. What a courageous man. Anything he does on the football field this year is a bonus. It's possible with a full offseason that he'll become an impact player this year.

Unfotunately for Pearsall, the 49ers need him to make an impact now. That's because Brandon Aiyuk is out for the year with a knee injury and Deebo Samuel no longer is good. And yet, Pearsall has caught zero passes the past three games.

“I think Ricky got a little banged up in Green Bay," head coach Kyle Shanahan said, "battled through that a lot, still was able to play a lot through it and helped us out at punt return. And I don't judge much from that Buffalo game. I think we had six completions that were screens and I think four other guys had like a four-yard catch except for [WR] Jauan [Jennings] on a skinny. There was nothing really with Ricky there. We had a chance to hit him downfield one time and he slipped, but that was nothing against him for that game.”

In six games, Pearsall has 11 catches for 132 yards and 1 touchdown. Keep in mind, he was the sixth wide receiver drafted. Of the top nine receivers taken in this year's draft, all but Pearsall have at least 393 receiving yards. Of course, none of the others got shot.

Still, on tape it looks like Pearsall isn't getting open. And the 49ers drafted him because they thought he could beat man-to-man coverage.

Let's see if Pearsall can do just that in the final five games of the season.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.