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Why the 49ers Might Extend Deebo Samuel's Contract this Offseason

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Grant Cohn

Dec 12, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Deebo Samuel Sr. (1) drops the ball after attempting to make a catch against the Los Angeles Rams in the third quarter at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Cary Edmondson-Imagn Images
Dec 12, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Deebo Samuel Sr. (1) drops the ball after attempting to make a catch against the Los Angeles Rams in the third quarter at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Cary Edmondson-Imagn Images / Cary Edmondson-Imagn Images
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Deebo Samuel is the most overpaid player on the 49ers.

He's getting an average of nearly $24 million per season, and at this point in his career, he's a glorified kick returner. His best contributions come on special teams. As a receiver, he's good for roughly 20 yards and a drop every week.

Clearly, the best option is to trade Deebo Samuel, but no team would want his contract. So the next best option is to release him. But that won't be so easy.

The 49ers restructured Samuel's contract in September to make his salary cap number lower for this year. That's because the 49ers thought they would be making another Super Bowl run instead of missing the playoffs.

As a result of the restructuring, releasing Samuel will be nearly impossible.

Samuel's salary cap number for 2025 will be nearly $16 million. If they release him, they'll take on a dead cap hit of $31.5 million. Which means he'll be much more expensive to cut than to keep.

The 49ers also could release him with a post -June-1 designation, but that would just mean they would take an $11 million dead cap hit in 2025 and a $20 million dead cap hit in 2026. Not a great option.

The only way to make Samuel cheaper for 2025 is to give him an extension, as terrible as that may sound. An extension would allow the 49ers to lower Samuel's cap number significantly next season and more easily release him in 2026.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

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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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