The San Francisco 49ers boast one of the deepest WR groups in the league, but they could be ditching one of their best weapons soon.

San Francisco is no stranger to trade chatter about their WRs, as they spent the 2024 offseason dealing with a contract saga involving Brandon Aiyuk and several rumors about WR Deebo Samuel leaving.

The changing of the seasons hasn’t stopped that chatter, as ESPN reporter Dan Graziano recently wrote that Samuel could be a trade piece come 2025.

“Samuel stands as an example of the difficult decisions San Francisco will confront in the spring,” Graziano wrote on November 15. “The team signed Brandon Aiyuk to a big-money contract extension before this season, extended Jauan Jennings earlier in the offseason and drafted Ricky Pearsall in the first round. So the Niners have spent considerable resources on their future at the wide receiver position. That leads one to believe Samuel could be the odd man out as they start to transition from their Super Bowl-caliber core into the future.”

Losing Samuel would be a major departure, but representative of the eventual sacrifices the 49ers will have to make. Building a highly competitive team isn’t cheap or easy, and eventually the Niners will have to start to move into a new generation.

San Francisco Can Recoup Some of Samuel’s Value

Part of the reason that Samuel looks like a possible trade target is the fact that he will be a free agent in 2026. The 49ers currently have Deebo playing on a three-year, $71 million deal that counts as a $28.3 million cap hit in 2025 according to Spotrac.

That is a large number, and one that the 49ers can’t avoid entirely. A trade would allow them to cut down the $16.6 million salary, but they would still be on the hook for at least $12 million in dead cap.

Still, that is better than Samuel running down his contract and the team getting nothing for him. But trading the 28-year-old receiver for appropriate value won’t be easy either as Samuel’s sizable salary may turn off teams from making a deal.

Samuel is a one-of-a-kind player, and he will not come cheap for San Francisco or whichever team decides to move for him.

49ers WR Speaks on Sideline Altercation

During the 49ers’ Week 11 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Samuel was shown getting into a physical altercation with long snapper Taybor Peppers. After San Francisco kicker Jake Moody’s third missed field goal of the game, Samuel let his frustration out leading to a back-and-forth with Peppers.

After the game, Samuel downplayed the incident, as did head coach Kyle Shanahan.

“Normally, I don’t even get like that, but just frustrated in the heat of battle,” Samuel said. “You know, really close game, and I kind of got out of character a little bit. But I’ll talk to Moody, and we’ll get past it…At first, I wasn’t saying nothing like crazy to him. I was just kind of frustrated at the time. But he went out there and won the game and he wasn’t bothered by it. So we’ll move past it.”

It was a bad look, but one that ultimately didn’t matter as Moody redeemed himself with a game-winning FG later in the contest.