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Kyle Shanahan Likes What He Sees from 49ers WR Ricky Pearsall

Pearsall will be one of the 49ers' most important players in the second half of the season.

Grant Cohn

Oct 27, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Ricky Pearsall (14) leaves the field after the game against the Dallas Cowboys at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images
Oct 27, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Ricky Pearsall (14) leaves the field after the game against the Dallas Cowboys at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images / Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images
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The 49ers believe in Ricky Pearsall.

Brandon Aiyuk is out for the season and the team doesn't seem like it's going to trade for a wide receiver to replace him. And that's because they have Pearsall, their rookie first-round pick who missed the first six games of the season after getting shot in the chest.

Pearsall made his NFL debut against the Chiefs and seemed a bit out of sync. Then he made his first career start this past Sunday night against the Cowboys and finished the game with 4 catches on 4 targets, plus he had a 39-yard run on a jet sweep, which means he had 77 yards from scrimmage on 5 touches. Impressive.

"Big time," head coach Kyle Shanahan said of Pearsall's improvement. "You could see it in practice. You see it really each practice with Ricky, just because he has been so limited in his stuff. But he picks it up fast. His stamina gets better and better and he's got a real natural feel for the game and now it's about just getting a feel within our offense. And I think it's gotten better each week."

Through two games, Pearsall has caught 7 of 9 targets and is averaging 8.4 yards per catch. He's emerging as a reliable possession receiver from the slot. But as he showed on his 39-yard run, he's explosive, too. Eventually, he'll make big catches down the field and run for big gains after the catch.

Pearsall will be one of the 49ers' most important players in the second half of the season. His stock is up.

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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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