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Imagining the 49ers Offense without Deebo Samuel and Christian McCaffrey

For starters, the offense might look static because Samuel and McCaffrey usually are the players who go in motion before the snap.

Grant Cohn

Dec 3, 2023; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Deebo Samuel (19) celebrates his touchdown with running back Christian McCaffrey (23) against the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field. Mandatory Credit: Eric Hartline-Imagn Images
Dec 3, 2023; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Deebo Samuel (19) celebrates his touchdown with running back Christian McCaffrey (23) against the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field. Mandatory Credit: Eric Hartline-Imagn Images / Eric Hartline-Imagn Images
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The last time the 49ers played a game without Christian McCaffrey and Deebo Samuel, they scored 23 points and lost to the Seahawks.

That was back in 2021 when Jimmy Garoppolo was the quarterback, so times have changed. Brock Purdy is a much better quarterback than Garoppolo ever was plus Jordan Mason has emerged as one of the top running backs in the NFL. So the 49ers still have plenty of talent even without Samuel and McCaffrey. But the offense will look much different without them.

For starters, the offense might look static because Samuel and McCaffrey usually are the players who go in motion before the snap. They're the ones Kyle Shanahan uses to draw the eyes of the opposing defense. Expect to see George Kittle shift from one side of the formation to the other, but the pre-snap motions could decrease unless the 49ers use rookie wide receiver Jacob Cowing.

In the passing game, you would expect Brandon Aiyuk to pick up the slack considering the 49ers just gave him a contract extension worth $30 million per year on average. But he clearly isn't in peak football shape yet, so he's not the 49ers' no. 1 option or even their no. 2 option.

The 49ers' go-to guy should be future Hall of Fame tight end George Kittle. He's one of the most underutilized receivers in the NFL. After him, the no. 2 option should be Jauan Jennings who has been on fire since the playoffs last season. Then Aiyuk can be option no. 3.

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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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