Deebo Samuel reportedly wants to be traded. The 49ers should do everything they can do keep him.
Are the Niners about to do something stupid?
When it comes to wide receivers who are the drivers of their offense’s success, a few names float to the top the list: Davante Adams, Tyreek Hill and Deebo Samuel. Adams and Hill have already been traded this offseason. If you believe the smoke coming from Samuel’s camp, he might be next.
Rumors spread one week before the 2022 NFL Draft that Samuel, holding out from San Francisco 49ers’ voluntary workouts as he negotiates a contract extension with the team, won’t be in Santa Clara this fall. The early warning signs were fairly nebulous: a debunked Facebook post from a family member. Reports from a guy who knows a guy. Adam Schefter relaying ethereal takes he’s been told by an agent or league executive.
Then Samuel proved there was fire behind the smoke. Per ESPN’s Jeff Darlington, he has officially asked for a trade.
It’s a request that has legs in a season where both Adams and Hill changed zip codes in exchange for first- and second-round picks. But it doesn’t make much sense, because the 49ers are not the Packers or Chiefs.
Green Bay and Kansas City had their hands forced by clogged salary caps that made it nearly impossible to keep their star wideouts. The Packers owe Aaron Rodgers a $29 million cap hit in 2022 and currently have only $14 million to spend at the moment. Retaining the star at the center of their passing universe would have meant cutting bait on vital defenders like De’Vondre Campbell and Rasul Douglas. Patrick Mahomes will take up nearly $36 million in cap space this season for a team with $18 million left to spent before the NFL limit. Like in Green Bay, the presence of a veteran MVP quarterback limits what they can spend elsewhere.
The 49ers don’t have that problem. While they currently have the least cap space in the league, they have an estimated $59 million coming in 2023 — 11th-best in the NFL. That’s because Jimmy Garoppolo’s onerous contract will fall off the books, but it could be wiped out before then. Trading or releasing Garoppolo would clear more than $25 million from the team’s cap sheet right now.
General manager John Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan made it clear Garoppolo is not this team’s future after trading away three first round draft picks for the chance to select FCS stud Trey Lance in the 2021 draft. Those years in which a team has a starting quarterback on a rookie contract are generally when teams build through free agency to create a contender. We saw it this season with the Los Angeles Chargers’ spending spree. We’re seeing it in Cincinnati where the Bengals overhauled their offensive line to protect Joe Burrow.
Lance will only count $28.3 million against the cap the next three seasons. The money he saves can be directly poured into the players who make him better. That includes Samuel, a guy whose average target was caught behind the line of scrimmage in 2020 but who managed 11.8 yards per catch anyway. His 10.0 yards after catch in 2021 was tops among wide receivers by a full 1.5 yards. That’s a player who can bail out a growing quarterback and make life easier for everyone around him!
What’s even more: Samuel reportedly isn’t asking for Hill/Adams or even DeAndre Hopkins money. He’s asking for $25 million annually — still a hell of a lot of money but a reasonable demand. Hill’s average salary constitutes 14.4 percent of the Dolphins’ salary cap in 2022. Samuel, at $25 million per year and a cap expected to rise to $220-225 million next offseason, would take up somewhere between 11.1 and 11.4 percent of his team’s cap in 2023.
The clash here could be predicated on guaranteed money. Samuel’s alleged willingness to settle for a lower value contract likely comes with the caveat of big guarantees to insulate him in case of injury. For a player with 135 targets and 86 carries last season — and who missed nine games in 2020 due to injury and COVID-19 — that’s a big deal. Unicorns like Samuel are rare, and while his bulky frame insulates him better from injury than a Percy Harvin, there’s a very real chance this is his lone chance to secure a big payday.
Of course, the Niners are feeling that crunch as well and may not want to owe money to a player who could get hurt. Unfortunately for them, Samuel knows exactly how much he means to this offense, especially with a young quarterback set to take the reins.
There’s also a chance Samuel’s request is related to the aforementioned quarterback uncertainty, but the Lance we saw at North Dakota State wasn’t a checkdown, short-range, dump-it-off-and-hope-for-the-best connoisseur like Garoppolo. The version of Lance San Francisco hopes it’s getting is one that can sling passes to Samuel (and George Kittle, Brandon Aiyuk, etc) all over the field. Keeping the All-Pro all-purpose game-changer in town is mutually beneficial.
The idea of a trade could be a logical next step in negotiation tactics in hopes of raising or lowering those financials. Samuel can say, “Trade me: The Raiders and Dolphins set a standard for receiver contracts I can live with elsewhere.” The Niners can say, “Demand a trade: A guy like you is worth premium draft picks, and we gave up a bunch of ours to get Lance.”
Ultimately, both sides have to know the best resolution is one that keeps Samuel in the Bay Area doing things like this for a team that badly needs him:
Don’t overthink this 49ers. Don’t escalate the posturing. Just keep Samuel around with a fat contract so both sides can be happy this fall.