The 49ers have granted WR Deebo Samuel permission to seek a trade per ESPN’s Adam Schefter
The 49ers have granted Deebo Samuel and his agent Tory Dandy permission to find a trade partner for the wide receiver, Samuel told ESPN. This comes after Samuel asked San Francisco to trade him during the players’ exit meetings after the season.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) February 9, 2025
“It was a hard conversation to… pic.twitter.com/uuEsxgFHIJ
The decision to likely move on from Samuel was actually put in motion last year when the 49ers reworked his contract for salary cap relief and moved up a significant amount of his salary for 2025 into an option bonus. This decision gave the 49ers a path to either release Samuel as a post June 1 cut or potentially trade him for the right price.
Samuel’s contract is more or less a players dream and a team’s nightmare. The 49ers made the decision to use large bonuses in every year of the contract for much needed cap relief each season. The 49ers have prorated about 92.5% of the first three years of Samuel’s contract extension that was signed in 2022. This leaves the 49ers with $31.55 million in prorated charges to deal with in 2025 if Samuel is cut or traded, which is #3.7M more in cap space than the 49ers have spent on Samuel as an active player over the last three years. If the 49ers were to trade Samuel they would take all $31.55 million in cap charges in 2025 and would require some minor tweaking of his contract to avoid that number jumping by about another $3 million.
The 49ers do not have to rush on a trade since they created a salary cap cushion via a teamwide commitment to contract restructures made in 2024. While the option for Samuel is technically due on the 10th day of the league year the 49ers could elect to not pick up the option and allow Samuel’s salary for the year to rise from $1.17 million to $16.6 million, increasing his cap charge from $15.869 million to about $28.2 million. While the jump is big, the 49ers should be prepared to take that increase if they are willing to take $31M in dead money via trade. None of Samuel’s salary is guaranteed and this would allow them to hold onto Samuel until the draft to try to move him in a trade.
If no trade options look promising then I would expect the team to consider a post June 1 designation to prevent Samuel’s unhappiness from becoming a distraction. This would likely need to occur prior to the option and would put Samuel on the books for 2025 at around $11 million with $20.8 million hitting the books in 2026.
Samuel is likely looking for an extension along with the trade as he is in the final year of his contract. These are always interesting extensions to watch as Samuel’s numbers have trailed off in San Francisco the last three years, but he is regarded as a dangerous player around the NFL and a trading team would likely envision more of a featured receiver role for Samuel. If the contract discussions do not seem to be moving in a positive direction he could just opt to bet on himself and hope for a big year in 2025 on a new team with a lucrative extension in 2026.
G