Three years ago, Deebo Samuel changed the nature of offensive football. This weekend, he was traded from San Francisco to Washington for a fifth-round draft choice, not long after his 29th birthday. In the NFL, life comes at you fast and aims for your legs with a pipe wrench.
Samuel was the signature piece at the zenith of the Kyle Shanahan Experience, the 49ers' ringless dynasty that looks like it might be ninja-stalking its sell-by date. He was the intriguing pass-catcher who became significantly more when he was unleashed as a running threat from the wideout position midway through the 2021 season. They solved their average-but-not-much-more-than-that quarterbacking problem, code-named Jimmy Garoppolo, by doubling down on an already run-dependent offense (they won the NFC championship game two years earlier by deliberately throwing only eight passes) with Samuel breaking down defenses by attacking with verve and sparkle from the outside back toward the maelstrom of the tackle box. He was named All-Pro, and teams across the league started thinking about wide receivers as running backs waiting for their moment.
It all seemed too brilliant to be foiled, and like every other bold new idea in football lasted less than a year before defensive coordinators with a free summer and video access solved the problems he created. In addition, Samuel was hesitant about becoming a de facto running back, openly fretting about his career being shortened by the accumulated punishment of being a hybrid receiver-runner, and by 2024 he had been supplanted by pass-catching running back Christian McCaffrey and as first-choice wide receiver by Jauan Jennings. He asked for a trade at season's end with two years still left on a deal he hopes can be extended, and for the cost of one of those fifth-rounders Shanahan seems to cherish so greatly, the 49ers cheerfully complied.
This being the first eye-opening trade of the new offseason, it will get outsized attention, especially because Washington is suddenly a fashionable team again after decades of Snyderization. Paired with a dynamic quarterback in Jayden Daniels and an absurdly underrated receiving partner in Terry McLaurin, Samuel might find the cruelty of football's aging process less onerous and maybe even tolerable.
But he'll always have 2021, and his moment as the player who would change the game. Three full seasons later, the running game is more important than it has been in years, but not because the need for imitation created a need for more Samuels. Rather, the league's newest innovation is to go backward in time, like so much else about this recidivist country. The league has rediscovered the 300-carry back that last roamed the earth nearly 15 years ago; there were six, led by Saquon Barkley and Derrick Henry. In addition, 13 players scored double-digit touchdowns, the largest such bounty since 2008. The noxious general-manager-as-accountant fixation on not creating expensive running backs seems to have given way to the coach who says, "Fuck that, Nerdlington.”
And Deebo Samuel will watch from the relative safety of the yard-line markers. The innovation he embodied is already part of a bygone era-ette, and at 29 he has a relatively short time to re-establish his pass-catching bonafides on a team that at least might be willing to let him try.
