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49ers WR Deebo Samuel Hasn't Missed a Practice This Offseason

Samuel is in a defacto contract year. Once the 49ers give Brandon Aiyuk a contract extension that makes him one of the highest-paid players in the league, they probably won't be able to afford Samuel past this season. So he could be on the trade block or the free agent market. And he wants to put his best foot forward.

Grant Cohn

Jul 26, 2024; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Deebo Samuel talks to the press during Day 4 of training camp at SAP Performance Facility. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-USA TODAY Sports
Jul 26, 2024; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Deebo Samuel talks to the press during Day 4 of training camp at SAP Performance Facility. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-USA TODAY Sports / D. Ross Cameron-USA TODAY Sports
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The 49ers are exhausted.

They're the oldest team in the NFL and they've played 60 games the past three seasons. So it's no surprise that players such as Christian McCaffrey, Nick Bosa, George Kittle, Javon Hargrave and Charvarius Ward take days off. They're pacing themselves. And then there are players such as Brandon Aiyuk and Trent Williams who haven't practiced at all this offseason due to contract disputes.

And then there's Deebo Samuel, the often-injured wide back who has been overweight and out of shape at times since he signed a contract extension that made him one of the highest-paid players in the NFL. If anyone of the captains were going to pace himself this offseason, you might expect it to be Samuel.

But Samuel hasn't missed a practice. Not in OTAs, not in minicamp, not in training camp. Even the great Fred Warner skipped practices in OTAs because they're optional. Which means Samuel has gone above and beyond what's expected of him as a veteran and a captain.

Why?

Samuel is in a defacto contract year. Once the 49ers give Brandon Aiyuk a contract extension that makes him one of the highest-paid players in the league, they probably won't be able to afford Samuel past this season. So he could be on the trade block or the free agent market. And he wants to put his best foot forward.

So he's determined. He's in outstanding shape. He's going to be a difficult to tackle as ever. He deserves major recognition for all his work.

The problem is that he still doesn't run good routes. His best routes are shallow crosses, deep crosses and screens. Anything that doesn't require an explosive cut. But that's to be expected. He can't change who he is at 28.

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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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