Expectations for Jalen Hurd's Sophomore Season

The hype train was blasting across the 49ers fanbase regarding Jalen Hurd last season.

Most of the excitement with Hurd stemmed from his status as a gadget player. A former running back in college now turned wide receiver, Hurd makes for a dream player for head coach Kyle Shanahan. Hurd also has an aggressive nature, which was lacking at wide receiver prior to 2019. Expectations for Hurd were quite high for a third-round pick.

Unfortunately for the 49ers and their fans, the Hurd-hype train was derailed when he sustained a back injury during the preseason. That injury proved to be much more severe than initially thought as he would miss his entire rookie season. Now that he is expected to be fully ready for the 2020 season, the hype train is back on track for Hurd.

So what do his expectations for his sophomore season look like?

Well, they assuredly aren't similar to how they were entering his rookie season. Hurd wasn't carrying a concerning back injury, so now his health is going to come into question. Despite what the 49ers say, Hurd is a bit of a liability. His back wasn't healing correctly last season. The fact that he couldn't even travel with the team shows the severity of it.

Hurd's expectations for 2020 should be to maintain health. The main reason his expectations were so high last season is because the Niners were desperate for a player to breakout at wide receiver. Now San Francisco has plenty of talent there and looks to finally have uniform talent for the first time under Shanahan.

That is both positive and negative for Hurd.

It is positive because there isn't high pressure for him to storm onto the scene. He also will not need to be featured heavily, which will bode well if there are indeed health concerns with the coaching staff. That might be the best course of action with Hurd until there is full confidence he is fine.

The negative with the talent at receiver being strong is that Hurd can become forgotten. Deebo Samuel, Kendrick Bourne, and Brandon Aiyuk are the clearly ahead of him. I would even put Trent Taylor ahead just because of previous success with Jimmy Garoppolo. It is going to be an uphill climb for Hurd to demonstrate both his ability and health.

This is a tricky situation for him to be in. Going into 2019, he was a sure fire lock to make the roster. Fast forward to 2020, and it will be quite the sight to see where he fits on the roster. I do not envision a scenario where he is cut, but seeing him in a role in the offense seems far off.

So Hurd's expectations going into his sophomore season need to be focused on his health. That is the default starting point. Anything else that he shows capable of should be treated as a bonus. The bright side to this is if he does excel and carve out a role, he will have truly earned it given the intense competition at the position. The 49ers have a tough call on there hands this season.