Tag: deebo samuel stats

49ers WR accomplishes career feat never reached by WR in NFL history

Deebo Samuel is incredible.

It’s not a huge surprise when San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Deebo Samuel does something unique at his position.

After all, Samuel effectively pioneered the “wide back” role that no other wide receiver has been able to replicate. Samuel’s 2021 All-Pro season featured 1,408 receiving yards and a wide receiver record 365 rushing yards. He also posted 14 total touchdowns that season.

While he’s not as prolific as a runner in 2024, Samuel’s multifaceted skill set still shines through, and there’s nothing that highlights that more than what he accomplished Thursday night in the 49ers’ 36-24 win over the Seattle Seahawks.

In the second quarter Samuel got loose up the left sideline. After Seahawks safety Julian Love badly misplayed the ball, Samuel outran the entire Seattle defense for a 76-yard score. It marked his second receiving TD of the year, and the 20th receiving touchdown of his career.

Per NFL Network’s Bridget Condon, Samuel became the first wide receiver in NFL history with 20 receiving touchdowns and 20 rushing touchdowns.

Reaching the 20/20 plateau is quite a feat regardless of position though. Only 19 players in history have done it — all running backs. Saints RB Alvin Kamara, Commanders RB Austin Ekeler, and Samuel’s teammate with the 49ers Christian McCaffrey are the three other active players on the list per Stathead’s search database.

The remarkable thing with Samuel is that there are no other WRs even close in history. Jerry Rice’s 10 rushing TDs are the second most for a WR. Dolphins WR Tyreek Hill is next on the list with seven. He’s tied with Bills WR Curtis Samuel.

Samuel may never replicate his dynamic 2021 season, but his unique versatility will live on forever in stats like this one where he became the first, and maybe last, receiver to hit 20 TDs in the air and on the ground.

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Why Kyle Shanahan is okay with defenses trying to take Deebo Samuel away

Deebo Samuel has been the 49ers’ offensive spark, and Kyle Shanahan would be fine with teams trying to take that away.

The 49ers in each of the last three weeks have needed an offensive spark. In all three instances they went to wide receiver Deebo Samuel to make a play, then leaned on him to continue manufacturing offense as a pass catcher in all three levels and as a runner out of the backfield. In the last three games, all 49ers wins, Samuel has accounted for 382 scrimmage yards and six total touchdowns.

Teams will surely aim to take Samuel away, which is exactly what head coach Kyle Shanahan wants.

Shanahan on Monday in his conference call said there’s not a concerted effort to get Samuel the ball specifically since the team is so loaded offensively, but he wouldn’t mind if teams started focusing heavily on his playmaking wide receiver.

“I mean, we always try to get to Deebo to get a spark if you look since he’s been around,” Shanahan said. “But, our other choices too, if we go to Christian at the time, [TE] George [Kittle],  B.A., Jauan, anybody. They all can give sparks. It kind of depends on what teams are playing, how they’re playing us. Deebo has also strung together a number of healthy weeks here over this last month, which has allowed him really to get back into the groove of things and be more consistent and just being out there and not having to sub him quite as much and him kind of being ready for all this stuff.

“So, it’s awesome when you can put him there and the more he does it the more people are going to focus extremely hard to take those away because if he isn’t a good look that’s usually the results you get. The more we can get people to take Deebo away, there’s nothing against Deebo, that means he’s a threat and that makes things easier for other guys. So it really should be ebb and flow like that throughout a year based off the guys we have and distributing it.”

Sunday’s win over Seattle was a dazzling offensive display where Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk, Kittle and McCaffrey all got loose. Samuel, Aiyuk and McCaffrey all accounted for more than 100 yards from scrimmage. Kittle posted 76 yards and a touchdown.

If teams start devoting more resources to stopping one player, it means they’re leaving one of those weapons either unguarded or in a mismatch. That’s the bind Shanahan wants defenses to be in, and in an ideal world they’ll be leaving themselves vulnerable in an area the 49ers can exploit.

Samuel is a tone setter for San Francisco’s offense and they should continue going to him when they need a big play. However, the 49ers will take it if they’re getting big plays elsewhere because teams are trying so hard to ensure it’s not Samuel beating them.

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Deebo Samuel’s insanely hot start has reached historic levels

No WR in #49ers history has gotten off to a better start than Deebo Samuel has this year, and he’s on pace to break some records.

It’s hard to get off to a better start than Deebo Samuel has in his third season. In fact, his start is the best in 49ers history for a receiver, one of the best ever for any NFL receiver, and through only seven games he’s had the best year of his career.

To put Samuel’s start into perspective, we dove into the numbers with the Stathead tool on Pro Football Reference.

There are zero wide receivers in 49ers history who’ve had more receiving yards through seven games than Samuel. He’s up to 819 yards after his 171-yard outburst Sunday in Chicago. The previous high through seven games in 49ers history belonged to Jerry Rice, who posted 781 yards in that span in 1986.

Since the merger, only six players have posted higher receiving yard totals through seven games:

2000: Colts WR Marvin Harison, 853
1995: Rams WR Isaac Bruce, 833
2016: Falcons WR Julio Jones, 830
2011: Patriots WR Wes Welker, 824
2018: Vikings WR Adam Thielen, 822
2000: Rams WR Isaac Bruce, 821

With his 171 yards in Chicago, Samuel now has three games with more than 150 yards this season. The all-time record for 150-yard games in a season is five, which Antonio Brown, Tim Brown, Roy Green and Jerry Rice all did. No 49ers player has ever done it three times in the first seven games.

It’s also worth noting that Samuel’s torrid pace, combined with the 17th game just added this season, puts him on track to break the all-time receiving yards record set by Lions WR Calvin Johnson in 2012. That year in 16 games, Johnson put up an astonishing 1,964 yards. More than 100 yards clear of Jerry Rice’s previous record of 1,848 set in 1995. Samuel’s 117 yards-per-game pace puts him on track for 1,989 yards in 17 games, which would set a new NFL record.

Even his 16-game pace eclipses Rice’s best season at 1,872 – 24 yards north of Rice’s record-setting 1995 campaign.

Removing the historical context and just focusing on Samuel helps put the improbability of this season in perspective. The 2019 second-round pick from South Carolina had a very good rookie season where he put up 802 yards and three touchdown catches on 57 receptions in 15 games.

His sophomore campaign was riddled with injuries and he posted just 391 yards and one receiving touchdown on 33 catches in seven games.

This season he’s not only blown past last year’s seven-game totals, he’s eclipsed most of his rookie season numbers as well. He’s up to 44 catches, 819 yards and four receiving touchdowns. If he didn’t catch another pass this season he’d have new career-highs in yards and touchdown catches.

The 49ers needed Samuel to make a leap this year, and leap he has into a stratosphere that’s putting him in a place with the NFL’s all-time greats.

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