Throughout the week, 49ers star receiver Deebo Samuel let his team–and the world, really–know that he could be doing more. And certainly, the numbers showed he was right. Especially with star receiver Brandon Aiyuk out for the year with an injury, it seemed there was more left in Samuel’s tank.
He was averaging 3.3 receptions per game, a career low. He’d been given 32 rush attempts on the year, in 12 games, and had tallied 92 total yards, an average of 2.9 yards per attempt–another career low. Samuel had just one touchdown. The 49ers’ Swiss Army knife looked pretty dull.
On Twitter/X, he posted that reports of his struggles this season were overblown. “Not struggling at all just not getting the ball!!!!!!!” he noted.
On “Thursday Night Football,” coach Kyle Shanahan clearly responded and tried to get Samuel more involved in a sloppy, rain-soaked environment. But, like the 12-6 loss in general, it was a disaster. Samuel had just three catches on seven targets (nearly a quarter of all passes the 49ers threw) and finished with 16 yards. He was given the ball on two handoffs, which produced a grand total of three yards.
49ers Star Getting Criticism
But there were two plays in particular that threw up major red flags on this miserable season for the 49ers and Deebo Samuel, with less than a minute play in the first half and the game tied, 3-3. Samuel was well open in the middle of the field and quarterback Brock Purdy tossed a well-placed ball that would have pushed the 49ers closer to field-goal range.
Samuel dropped it.
More egregiously, in the third quarter, with a little more than eight minutes to go, purdy again found Samuel over the middle, this time near the Rams’ 20-yard line and with a chance at a touchdown ahead of him. But yet again: a drop.
Amazon Prime play-by-play man Al Michaels not impressed. “That was a touchdown,” he said. Nor was anyone watching the game, particularly fans, who booed him for the second time in the game.
One user on Twitter/X wrote, “The Deebo Samuel noise is going to get a lot louder after this third down drop…”
Samuel went to the sideline and was shown staring vacantly into space thereafter. “Deebo Samuel was in disbelief and exhaustion after another drop and getting booed off the field,” one Twitter/X account noted.
The popular NFL account of Dov Kleinman wrote, “Deebo Samuel is WASHED.”
And the NFL Memes account joked, “Deebo Samuel is so washed, Jake Paul just challenged him for his next fight.”
Deebo Samuel Responds Postgame
Give Samuel some credit, he faced the music after the game, answering questions from reporters at his locker.
“Real, very, very frustrating,” Samuel said. “At the end of the day, catch that ball, there’s nothing there but end zone. End of the day, I got to catch that rock.”
He was asked what he saw on the third-quarter play. He repeated: a touchdown.
“Just like seeing the moment, came across the middle and saw nothing but the end zone,” Samuel continued. “At the end of the day, got to load the ball and go score.”
