49ers missed golden opportunity for a reunion with Deebo Samuel trade

San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Deebo Samuel made a request to be traded, and general manager John Lynch said the team planned to honor that. The 49ers followed through on that by reportedly trading Samuel to the Washington Commanders for a 2025 fifth-round draft pick on Saturday.

Samuel is coming off a down season in 2024 and felt that he needed a fresh start in order to get back to being the player he used to be. While Lynch said the relationship with Samuel is still good and reports suggest there is still plenty of love between the wide receiver and head coach Kyle Shanahan, a divorce seemed imminent, and it is now official.

The Commanders had been rumored to have interest in the All-Pro receiver, so the fact that he ended up there does not come as a huge shock. Washington made it to the NFC Championship last season. They are a team on the rise that now has a new veteran target for their young quarterback, Jayden Daniels.

In Deebo Samule trade, San Francisco 49ers missed out on opportunity to reunite Christian McAffrey with his brother

Our own Peter Panacy recently looked into a proposed trade between the 49ers and Commanders that would have taken place after June 1st so as to limit the amount of dead money the Niners would incur.

That mock trade had the 49ers send Samuel to Washington in exchange for a 2026 fourth-round draft pick and a conditional 2027 fifth-round draft pick, which obviously did not come to pass.

Instead, the Niners only got a fifth-round pick for Samuel, which feels like a major missed opportunity. If they had been a bit more patient, perhaps they could have gotten something better in return.

Maybe if San Francisco had played its cards right, they could have even landed wide receiver Luke McCaffrey, the brother of 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey.

The younger McCaffrey had his rookie season with Washington last year and did not do too much, hauling in only 18 receptions for 168 yards. However, he impressed in kick-return duties and clearly has a lot of potential that could make him a solid receiver down the road.

Maybe San Francisco's old friend Adam Peters, formerly the assistant general manager of the 49ers and the current general manager in Washington, would have been willing to throw his old team a bone and include McCaffrey in a trade for Samuel, or just straight up trade McCaffrey for Samuel, if Lynch had been more patient.

The 49ers already have quite a bit of nepotism when it comes to recent hires to their coaching staff, so why not add a little bit of nepotism to the roster as well? While it would have been nepotistic, the 49ers should have tried to get something more for Samuel than they did.

Ultimately, it seems like the Niners just wanted to get rid of Deebo and move on as quickly as possible, but a bit more patience could have netted them a solid potential replacement.