Pretty hard to Jock Blog about Deebo Samuel when Deebo himself is out here telling us no one knows the real story.
What could it be?
That he doesn’t actually like living half the year in the great state of California, with our cool grizzly bear flag and lack of mosquitoes?
That he doesn’t actually like being a “wide back”, even though he gleefully named himself that as the 2021 season went on?
Or that whatever money the 49ers offered him did not include enough guaranteed money, or enough annual average value?
Your guess is as good as Adam Schefter’s, sports fans.
We know that because this morning, Deebo took to social media to deride a Schefter report that Deebo wants to be closer to home. Deebo even included those laughing-crying emojis, so you know it must be a big deal.
Whatever it is, it’s adding on to what is easily the worst off-season of the John Lynch/Kyle Shanahan Era.
The Deebo thing is such a disaster, the idea that Jimmy Garoppolo is still on the 49ers roster, still gobbling up $25 million of cap space, is now small potatoes.
When you reduce Jimmy G, the story that consumed our waking hours, to “scroll-past” status, you know you’ve dropped a bomb on the 49ers.
To my very uneducated opinion, the 49ers’ best play would be to play the long game here, and hope that cooler heads prevail. Be like the Jets in Spielberg’s ‘West Side Story’, snap their fingers rhythmically, and be cool, boy. Stay cool, boy. In that scenario, dust settles, headlines fade, summertime comes and Deebo inks a lucrative deal to become Trey Lance’s best friend for the next several years.
The big problem with that scenario is this thing called the NFL Draft. It happens next week. And if the 49ers think that Deebo is one-thousand-percent dead-blanking-serious over-my-dead-body-in-a-19-jersey for-real that he never wants to be a 49er ever again, they need to get something for him.
And that something would be a first-round draft pick next Thursday night, with which they could presumably snag one of the premier wideouts in the draft — Alabama’s Jameson Williams (who had ACL surgery in January), Ohio State’s Garret Wilson, USC’s Drake London, Ohio State’s Chris Olave, Arkansas’ Treylon Burks or Penn State’s Jahan Dotson, all projected first-rounders.
So if the 49ers don’t want to play the long game and bank on the theoretically good relationship between Deebo and Kyle, they do what the Kansas City Chiefs and Green Bay Packers did with Tyreek Hill and Davante Adams — trade away a player you never dreamed you’d trade.
In other words, if Tyreek and Davante can get traded . . . Deebo can get traded.
Nobody ever accused the NFL of warm, fuzzy sentimentality, as I was just saying to Joe Montana’s No. 19 Chiefs jersey.
To summarize:
- Stay cool, boy. Wait out Deebo. Sell him on the glories of the 408. Show him the house he can buy in Los Gatos with his new deal.
- Panic. Trade him next Thursday. Do the unthinkable. End the Deebo Era and haul in some picks.
I would prefer option 1, but Deebo isn’t telling us much about what the likely options are. He says no one knows but himself, his agent and the 49ers. And the 49ers are proving to be fairly leak-proof. Mac Jones 2021 rumors, anyone?
And while I prefer option 1, I am using this Jock Blog to prepare you all for option 2.
Man. What I wouldn’t give for the innocent, throwback charm of the old “Jimmy G panic” storyline days.