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Why the 49ers Need to Add a Wide Receiver this Offseason

The 49ers need to sign or draft a wide receiver this offseason, someone who can contribute right away if necessary.

Grant Cohn

Oct 6, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk (11) after the game against the Arizona Cardinals at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images
Oct 6, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk (11) after the game against the Arizona Cardinals at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images / Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images
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The 49ers have poured tons of resources into the wide receiver position the past few years and they still have major question marks.

Brandon Aiyuk is a question mark. He tore his ACL, MCL and meniscus last season a couple months after signing a four-year, $120 million contract extension. He almost certainly will miss the entire offseason training program and potentially the first few games as well. Then when he returns, it's unclear what condition he'll be in after having zero training camp for the second year in a row. It's also unclear how explosive he'll be after his massive knee injury.

Deebo Samuel is a question mark. He might not even be on the team next season. I'm guessing the 49ers would trade him if there's a team that wants him. And that team might not exist, considering Samuel is aging, expensive and simply not explosive anymore.

Ricky Pearsall is a question mark. He finished the season strong in two games that didn't matter. Otherwise, he didn't do much. Counting on him to be a consistent contributor next season seems risky.

Jauan Jennings is a question mark in the sense that he has outperformed his contract and might hold out if the 49ers don't give him another extension.

And then there's Jacob Cowing, another question mark. The 49ers didn't seem to trust him to play anything but special teams this season.

Which means the 49ers need to sign or draft a wide receiver this offseason, someone who can contribute right away if necessary.

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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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