The rift between Deebo Samuel and the 49ers came as a surprise. Adding fuel to the unexpected was the slew of reasons offered for why Samuel requested a trade a week before the NFL draft. NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport on Tuesday in an appearance on the Pat McAfee Show offered a little bit of clarity.
Rapoport specifically talked about Samuel’s unhappiness with his role when discussing where the relationship between the 49ers and Samuel is after he showed up for mandatory minicamp. San Francisco has taken steps this offseason to ensure Samuel slides more into a traditional wide receiver role instead of leaning on him to be a running back and handle a heavy workload on the ground.
“What the 49ers, I think, have done is try to say to him, ‘we are not gonna use you as a running back. We drafted a running back in the third round,’ they have a couple good players coming back from last year,” Rapoport said. “I think they’d like to use him on the gadget plays, but not give it to him between the tackles 15 times. That is something that actually speaks maybe louder than a new contract.”
