Deebo Samuel and Kyle Shanahan will both talk about how much they like one another. It wasn’t always that way, at least for the 49ers’ star wide receiver.
Samuel in an interview on Slow News Day with Kevin Clark at Media Row in Glendale, Ariz. talked about what makes his head coach special. The same reason Shanahan is so successful though is the same reason he used to frustrate Samuel during the wide receiver’s rookie season.
“Detail. Like how important it is,” Samuel said when asked what he’s learned from Shanahan. “There’ll be a lot of mess ups in games that people don’t know nothing about. It’s just small things that will lose you the game. Kyle is real huge on details, being decisive, breaking the huddle right, hearing everything. Every single word in the huddle when you think it doesn’t matter to you, it matters to you. Detail is just huge to him.”
He elaborated more specifically.
“Alignment, like the task at hand,” Samuel said. “If he says one yard outside the numbers, you’ll be one yard outside the numbers. Not a half a yard. Not two yards. Details are huge, because everything with Kyle is about time. Timing is everything.”
While that attention to detail has allowed Samuel to have unprecedented success at his position and helped the 49ers get to the NFC championship game three times in the last four years, it also frustrated Samuel at first.
“Man, my rookie year was rough,” Samuel said. “My rookie year was real. I used to go to practice with dark shields on my helmet just so he couldn’t see my eyes because I was cussing him out in my helmet.”
Despite the tough practices in his first season, Samuel shined and flashed some of the variety he offers the 49ers offense. In his first year he posted 57 receptions for 802 yards and three touchdowns through the air. On the ground he racked up 159 yards and three touchdowns on 14 carries.
As Samuel has grown into the 49ers’ offense, his relationship with his head coach solidified. The improved rapport between Samuel and Shanahan helped the 49ers navigate a trade request amid contract negotiations with the receiver last offseason.
“You don’t see too many coaches like him,” Samuel said. “In the aspect of – he’s a players before anything (coach). He asks us our input on everything that goes on with the team. He doesn’t make any decisions on his own.”
Samuel and Shanahan have come a long way from dark visors and secret cursing. Now, thanks to Shanahan’s hard coaching and Samuel’s willingness to accept it, they form one of the most dynamic coach-receiver duos in football.
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