Receiver Deebo Samuel Sr. is back in San Francisco, and back in the number he wore from 2019 through 2023: 19.
Coach Kyle Shanahan explained on Saturday that any contract-driven awkwardness from years past is a non-issue now.
“Deebo’s always been one of the closest guys we’ve been to, just relationship-wise,” Shanahan told reporters. “When Deebo went through his contract negotiations, [I’ll] try not to put words in his mouth, but I think he thought it’d be advantageous to make it look like there was a little bit of a battle. Sometimes that helps, sometimes it doesn’t. . . .
“Those OTAs [in 2022], I was at Deebo’s house on the eighth OTA day, and I was talking about how all that was just BS. He came to minicamp. We had a great summer together. I think he signed the first day back at training camp. We got over that in OTAs. That was just stuff from the negotiating periods back in April and stuff. There were stuff, definitely, that made me like, ‘What the hell is going on?’ We’re not around Deebo. Then we see him in OTAs and we got to talk man-to-man and it was fine as soon as we got with each other.”
Shanahan also said that Deebo’s return was unrelated to losing receiver Ricky Pearsall for the entire season.
“They’re just two completely different types of players,” Shanahan said. “Deebo was someone that we were hoping it would work out, depending on Deebo’s other opportunities and what it could be here. That was something that we were hoping for a long time could work out and it ended up working out for both of us. The Ricky thing changed nothing.”
And so both Samuel and linebacker Dre Greenlaw have returned to the 49ers, after a year elsewhere. Shanahan believes it will make a difference for the team.
“They’ve been away for a year, but to see them out there, they look exactly like the guys I remember,” Shanahan said.
That’s good news for the 49ers, who will need everything they can to compete with the Rams and Seahawks in the NFC West.
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