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49ers HC Kyle Shanahan Says Ricky Pearsall is "Doing a Hell of a Job"

Ricky Pearsall has been one of the most disappointing first-round picks in the NFL this season.

Grant Cohn

Dec 8, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Ricky Pearsall (14) stands on the field before the start of the game against the Chicago Bears at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Cary Edmondson-Imagn Images
Dec 8, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Ricky Pearsall (14) stands on the field before the start of the game against the Chicago Bears at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Cary Edmondson-Imagn Images / Cary Edmondson-Imagn Images
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SANTA CLARA -- Ricky Pearsall has been one of the most disappointing first-round picks in the NFL this season.

To be fair, he missed the first six games after getting shot in the chest. And in his first few games, he looked promising. But in the 49ers' past five games, he has just 2 catches on 9 targets for just 21 yards.

Despite his meager production, head coach Kyle Shanahan remains encouraged by Pearsall.

"I think Ricky's doing a hell of a job," Shanahan said on Wednesday. "I know everyone talks about the gunshot wound, but what people don't realize is, I think I said a couple weeks ago, but he only had three practices before that gunshot wound. He missed all OTAs and all of training camp and then to get that gunshot basically went from Florida to us halfway through the season. So, I thought he did a hell of a job coming back from that, trying to learn and practice as he goes. He's been banged up a little bit, started in Green Bay. I think he's fought through that here the last couple weeks. I thought he did some real good stuff on tape last week. He had a couple big catches. I think he's going the right direction and hope it keeps improving here these next three games."

Shanahan brings up a good point. Pearsall missing most of training camp probably affected him even more than than gunshot. All Pro wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk also missed training camp and was extremely rusty the first seven weeks of the season before going down with a knee injury. Why wouldn't Pearsall struggle, too?

Let's reserve judgment until next year when he goes through a full offseason with the team.

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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.

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