The 49ers gave Deebo Samuel permission to seek a trade in February, and his camp wasted little time finding a partner, as Washington sent draft compensation to San Francisco for rights to the 29-year-old WR on Saturday evening. Samuel will team up with Terry McLaurin to form one of the bigger-name WR duos in the NFC, while S.F. will now officially turn to Jauan Jennings and Brandon Aiyuk as their starting receivers. Let’s dig into what this deal means from a fantasy perspective.
DEEBO SAMUEL
- Samuel’s 8.3 yards per target last year was the second-lowest mark of his career, and he was overtaken by Jauan Jennings as San Fran’s WR1 down the stretch in 2024. He has a lengthy injury history dating back to his time at South Carolina and is now 29 years old. He’s an upgrade over the Commanders’ other WR2 options (Noah Brown and Dyami Brown are both UFAs) but is unlikely to challenge Terry McLaurin as Washington’s WR1.
- The good news is he’s tethered to an elite QB, and McLaurin has never registered a truly elite target share. He had a 22% target share in 2024 and was actually matched by Noah Brown in targets from Weeks 6-13 before Brown got injured. McLaurin has never been a player to record a dominant target share, so there’s plenty of room for other options to succeed around him. Zach Ertz may re-sign and take a chunk of the pie, but Samuel could easily get a high-teens or even low-20s target share.
- Kliff Kingsbury could get creative with Deebo’s usage, but Deebo averaged just 3.2 yards per carry in 2024 and didn’t look like his former self. I’d still expect him to get some carries in Washington, but that part of his game is likely past its peak.
OTHER COMMANDERS PLAYERS
- The Commanders were always going to add WR talent. McLaurin has now had 117+ targets in five straight seasons and seems like a lock for another 21-24% target share in 2025. This prevents him from posting a nuclear target share, but we honestly haven’t seen that kind of ceiling from him through six seasons anyway. With how much Samuel dropped off last season, this shouldn’t affect McLaurin too much.
- Ertz may re-sign and Austin Ekeler is back. This hurts their outlooks if you only look at the current depth chart, but again, Washington was always going to add WRs. We saw a heavy rotation last year behind McLaurin with both Browns, Olamide Zaccheaus, Jamison Crowder, and Luke McCaffrey all playing some. In 2025, we likely just see a clearer WR2 in Samuel rather than a rotation, with Ertz/Ekeler maintaining similar involvement.
49ERS PLAYERS
- Interestingly, Ian Rapoport reported that the 49ers are open to trading Brandon Aiyuk, and Dianna Russini noted that other teams have expressed interest in trading for him. Note that Rapoport reported this pre-Deebo trade, but it was well-known already that Deebo was going to be playing elsewhere next season. With Jennings ascending into the WR1 role last year without Aiyuk and Ricky Pearsall looking competent and presumably taking another step forward with a less chaotic offseason, Aiyuk could still be disposable, especially given George Kittle and Christian McCaffrey are back as top-tier pass catchers for the Niners. As was the case last summer, we could have another few months of waiting and seeing what happens with Aiyuk.
- The assumption should have been that Deebo was gone, so, in theory, this should not have much impact on how we approach S.F. pass catchers. Public reports indicated he was seeking a trade, and he was likely to be cut if a trade partner wasn’t found. Still, for those who still needed it, this serves as actual confirmation that Samuel is gone and Jennings will be a full-time top-two WR for the Niners in 2025 with Pearsall also stepping into a larger role. We may see San Francisco pass catchers’ ADPs climb slightly now that the news is official.
