Richard Sherman Explains How 49ers' Offense Could Benefit From Deebo Samuel Trade

Samuel was traded to the Commanders after playing in San Francisco for six seasons.

San Francisco 49ers receiver Deebo Samuel reacts to a play. / Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images

The San Francisco 49ers traded receiver Deebo Samuel to the Washington Commanders on Saturday after he was granted permission to seek a trade. The 49ers' offense will look a bit different in 2025 without the former Pro Bowler on the squad.

However, retired NFL cornerback Richard Sherman, who played for the 49ers for three seasons from 2018–20, thinks Samuel's absence will help "simplify” the offense. By this, he meant that there's too many big stars on the offense right now, which puts a lot of pressure on coach Kyle Shanahan and quarterback Brock Purdy to throw to every one of the star targets. Samuel even expressed his frustration with not getting as much catches this past season.

It's impossible to make everyone happy, but, like Sherman said, losing Samuel allows the offense to focus on other star targets.

"Sometimes you have too many mouths to feed and you don't have enough footballs," Sherman said on his Richard Sherman Podcast. "There's only one football and you're trying to feed Christian McCaffrey, [George] Kittle, [Brandon] Aiyuk, you're trying to get it to Deebo and now you got this draft pick in [Ricky] Pearsall and you're trying to make sure you keep everybody happy and it's very difficult to do.

"And I think this kind of simplifies things. I think it gets Kittle more involved in the offense. He obviously has been fantastic and one of the best tight ends in the game, and I think that's something down the stretch that Kyle Shanahan realized, that 'Hey, we're not using George Kittle enough, we need to find a way to get him the ball' and you cannot get everybody the ball when you have so many mouths to feed."

"Sometimes you have too many mouths to feed"@RSherman_25 reacts to the 49ers trading Deebo Samuel to the Commanders pic.twitter.com/kKq93KZIJf

— Richard Sherman Podcast (@RShermanPodcast) March 5, 2025

With one less star receiver to throw to, the 49ers' offense can focus on getting the ball to other key targets, like the players Sherman listed above.

"I think this is, sometimes, addition by subtraction," Sherman continued. "Kinda simplifying 'Hey, I don't have to get the ball to all these guys anymore, I can just run the offense more straightforward.'"

There will surely be a learning curve for the 2025 season as Samuel was a big component of the offense for the past six seasons. Still, it sounds like Sherman believes the 49ers' decision to trade Samuel to the Commanders was a good one. It'll be interesting to see how Samuel's presence impacts Washington—and how his absence impacts San Francisco.

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