Many believe that the San Francisco 49ers may want to move their other great wideout, Deebo Samuel, in the upcoming summer if they sign receiver Brandon Aiyuk to a huge long-term deal extension. However, if Samuel becomes even more vital to the offence and learns to play a third position—kick returner—the 49ers could want to reconsider that statement.
The 28-year-old, who primarily lines up as a wideout but occasionally lines up as a running back, is open to the concept. He even supports experimenting with it throughout training camp to see how things work out.
“I wouldn’t mind doing it from the get-go,” Samuel told reporters on Friday. “I’m a team-first player, so if Kyle (Shanahan) was like, ‘Hey, man, we don’t want you to do it full-time, we just use you whenever we really need it,’ I’m fine with that. But if you want to use me full-time, I’m all for that as well.”
Samuel has limited experience returning kickoffs during his five-year NFL career. He had three kick returns for 75 yards in 2021 (25 yards per return) and another six returns for 154 yards last season (25.6 yards per return), but with the NFL’s new kickoff rules, he believes the odds favor explosive players like himself.
“Looking at it, it’s kind of weird, but I feel like on the side that we’re on, for us, the returning team, I feel like we have a real big advantage of you make one guy miss,” Samuel added. “I mean, it’s just you and a kicker. Nine times out of 10, the kicker’s not making tackles. So, I’m pretty sure people will try to turn skill guys into kickers at some point if it continues to go [this way], just so they have a last-line-of-defense tackler.”
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