All 49ers

Why the 49ers Should Trade Deebo Samuel Before the Draft

The offense is too Samuel-centric. Trading him won't create much cap space this year, but it will create more opportunities for better players.

Grant Cohn

In this story:

Deebo Samuel is declining.

He was great in 2021, then he was overweight in 2022, as he admitted. He made it a point to come into 2023 in good shape, but he still didn't play better than he did in 2022. And in the Super Bowl, he was terrible -- just three catches on 11 targets.

Ideally, the 49ers would make Samuel the third or fourth option in the passing game at this stage of his career, because he's a terrible route-runner who can't beat man-to-man coverage. Both Brandon Aiyuk and George Kittle are better at getting open than Samuel.

But the 49ers can't make Samuel a third option while he's the highest paid offensive skill position player on the team. He's scheduled to cost the 49ers more than $28 million against the salary cap next season. At that price tag, the 49ers have no choice but to keep force feeding him the ball at the expense of better players.

That's why the 49ers should trade Samuel now. The offense is too Samuel-centric. Trading him won't create much cap space this year, but it will create more opportunities for better players. And the 49ers probably will be able to get a second- or third-round pick in exchange.

If the 49ers wait until next year to trade Samuel, they'll save more cap space, but they'll get much less for Samuel in a trade if he continues his decline.

This upcoming NFL Draft is loaded at receiver. The 49ers should trade Samuel before the draft and use the pick they get for him on his replacement.

Published
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.

Home/News