The San Francisco 49ers lost another key piece of their offense when wide receiver Deebo Samuel went down with a hamstring injury against *our* Seattle Seahawks in Week 5. Samuel, 30, pulled up and fumbled on a non-contact play while trying to hit the edge, and now he’s sidelined for a few weeks, which is just adding to the absolute mess of injuries in their receiver room.
The Injury Bug Just Keeps Biting the Niners’ Wideouts
This isn’t just about Deebo. San Francisco is getting hammered at wide receiver, plain and simple. They’ve already lost Ricky Pearsall, De’Zhaun Stribling, Christian Kirk, Demarcus Robinson, and Khadarel Hodge to injuries for various amounts of time. It’s a revolving door of bad news for their offense. In that Week 5 game, they trotted out Brandin Cooks for the first time, and Jacob Cowing played a ton of snaps behind Mike Evans. Jordan Watkins even got 22 snaps himself. Right now, those three are apparently their “top depth” behind Evans, who’s still nursing a painful rib injury of his own. It’s a rough scene down south.
Shanahan’s Receiver Math Just Isn’t Adding Up
When asked about his receiver plan without Samuel, head coach Kyle Shanahan broke down the grim reality: “Well, yeah, with Deebo out, we have five guys on the roster and Deebo being out, that would be four.” *Four* healthy receivers on the main roster, folks. In that same Seahawks game, “Jake” also went down with an ankle injury, though he ended up being alright. Shanahan noted that “the numbers got low real quick” and they usually like to have five receivers up for game day. With only four on the active roster, they’ll have to activate someone from the practice squad just to hit that number. Their options are Wesley Grimes, Will Pauling, or Xavier Smith.
Shanahan *claims* they have “enough” with those three practice squad guys, but c’mon. Losing four or five guys is a “huge challenge,” as he admitted. Normal NFL teams roll with five or six receivers, and the Niners don’t even have five healthy bodies on their 53-man roster, let alone six. What does this mean? A heavy, heavy dose of Mike Evans. He had 7 catches for 113 yards and a touchdown in that last game, probably carrying their entire receiving load.
The 49ers are staring down games against the Washington Commanders and Atlanta Falcons before their bye week. They’re hoping to start 7-0 and call themselves “the league’s best team,” but with a receiving corps this banged up and struggling for production, that’s going to be a tough climb. They’ve gotta figure something out, and fast.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Yahoo Sports.
Leave a Reply