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A Deebo Samuel Trade That Would Work for the 49ers and the Ravens

The Ravens have Lamar Jackson and just signed Derrick Henry -- they want to have the best running game in the NFL. Of course they'd like to have Samuel, too.

Grant Cohn

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The 49ers have outgrown Deebo Samuel and the Ravens seem to want him. Can they figure out a trade that works for both sides?

Samuel will cost the 49ers more than $28 million against the salary cap next season -- he's the most overpaid player on the team. The 49ers could ask him to take a pay cut (see: Arik Armstead and Kyle Juszczyk), or they could trade Samuel after June 1 for a player from another team.

The 49ers should trade Samuel to the Ravens for tight end Isaiah Likely.

The Ravens have Lamar Jackson and just signed Derrick Henry -- they want to have the best running game in the NFL. Of course they'd like to have Samuel, too. Because he's part running back, part wide receiver. He fits their offense perfectly.

Meanwhile, the 49ers have outgrown Samuel. They don't need to spend $28 million dollars on a wide receiver who can double as running back, because they have Christian McCaffrey. Now, the 49ers simply need wide receivers who can beat man-to-man coverage, and Samuel can't do that.

So trade him to the Ravens for Likely, their young tight end who won't start next year because Baltimore has Mark Andrews, who will return from injury. Last season, Jackson had a passer rating of 147 when targeting Likely. He's a tremendously promising young tight end who can play alongside George Kittle and replace him eventually.

The 49ers need a second tight end much more than they need a wide back.

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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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