Analysis of Washington’s trade for Deebo Samuel

March 3, 2025

by Steve Thomas

Various reports over the weekend indicated that Washington has agreed to a trade with the San Francisco 49ers for wide receiver Deebo Samuel in exchange for a fifth round draft pick.  The trade was first reported by Jordan Schultz from Fox Sports.

Samuel is currently entering the final year of a three year, $71M contract extension.  This trade will technically not be effective until the new league year begins on March 12.  Samuel has an option for 2025 worth more than $12M, which the 49ers control.   San Francisco will probably not to take this option prior to the trade, because if they do, that will add to the already huge dead cap figure that they will take as a result of this trade.  At the same time, Samuel will obviously want the money, and presumably, Washington will want that money to count for 2025 and not as a prorated option.  Washington has significant cap space this season, so the smart and obvious thing to do will be to have the 49ers rework the contract to have all of the money count for 2025.  That will have the effect of increasing Washington’s cap hit for Samuel to $17,462,294 for 2025, which is currently the most likely number the team will take on. Washington will not have any dead cap.  He’ll need to re-sign with Washington in order to remain with the team beyond this year.

His contract includes four void years from 2026 through 2029, which is a way to reduce a player’s annual cap hit, but most of that void money will stay with San Francisco, not Washington.  As a result of this trade, the 49ers will actually lose more than $15M in cap space this year, and then more in void year dead cap space for multiple seasons beyond 2025.

It’s very hard to imagine why the 49ers were willing to make this trade when it is going to have such a negative impact on their salary cap situation.  In my view, either there are more moves that can be made to impact Samuel’s cap situation, or there’s something about Samuel that hasn’t been made public, because the finances of this trade make little sense, particularly with the small return San Francisco is getting from Washington.

The fact that Washington only gave up a fifth round pick for Samuel is in part a recognition of the fact that he only has one year left on his contract, but it also due in no small part to his mediocre recent production.  Samuel, who is 6’0” and 215 pounds, was drafted by the 49ers in the second round of the 2019 draft, with the 36th overall pick, out of South Carolina, where he was a First Team All-American in 2018.

At the 2019 NFL Combine, he ran the 40 yard dash in 4.48 seconds, jumped 39 inches in the vertical leap and 10’2” in the standing broad jump, and did 15 bench press reps.  In his six-year NFL career, he has played in 81 games, with 73 starts, and has 334 receptions in 510 targets, for 4792 yards, 14.3 yards per reception, a 65.5% catch percentage, and 22 touchdowns, plus 202 rushing attempts for 1143 yards, 5.7 yards per carry, and another 20 touchdowns.  This equates to a total of 5935 yards from scrimmage, 11.1 yards per touchdown, and 42 touchdowns.

Throughout his career, he’s averaged 70 receptions in 107 targets per year, for 1006 yards, 14.3 yards per reception, a 65.5% catch percentage, and 5 touchdowns, plus 42 rushing attempts per year, for an average of 240 yards, 5.7 yards per attempt, and 4 touchdowns per year, and 1131 yards from scrimmage.

The high water mark of his career to date came in 2021, and his impressive averages are significantly boosted by that season. In 2021, Samuel had 77 receptions in 121 attempts, for 1405 yards, 63.6% catch percentage, 18.2 yards per reception, and 6 touchdowns, plus 59 carries for 365 yards, 6.2 yards per attempt, and 8 more touchdowns.  That performance earned him Pro Bowl and First-Team All-Pro Honors.

Removing the outlier 2021 season from his statistics, for the rest of his career he’s averaged 51 receptions in 78 targets per year, for 677 yards, 13.0 yards per reception, and 3 touchdowns, plus 29 rushing attempts for an average of 156 yards, 5.4 yards per attempt, and 2 touchdowns.  Those numbers are at the mediocre starter level.

Last year wasn’t a particularly productive year for Samuel.  In 2024, he played in and started 15 games, and made 51 receptions in 81 attempts, for 670 yards, 13.1 yards per reception, a 63.0% catch percentage, and 3 touchdowns, plus 42 carries for 136 yards, 3.2 yards per attempt, and 1 additional touchdown.  His 51 receptions and 136 rushing yards were career lows except for his injury year, 2020.

On the surface, at least, it seems most likely that San Francisco was willing to trade Samuel because his 2025 cap hit does not match mid-level production, and since he will be a free agent after this season, they wanted to get some assets back for him.  They appear to be willing to sacrifice cap space this season in order to gain at least a small amount of draft capital.  That may be a positive in a team-building sense, but it isn’t a choice that we see many NFL teams make.

Washington doubtlessly views Samuel as the #2 receiver behind Terry McLaurin, his 2019 draft classmate.  McLaurin has been more productive by at least some measures than Samuel over their respective careers – McLaurin has gained a total of 6452 yards from scrimmage, compared to 5935 by Samuel, and had 82 receptions for 1096 yards, versus 51 for 670 for Samuel.  However, McLaurin will have a 2025 salary cap figure of more than $25M, which will most likely be approximately $8M more than that of Samuel.  In total, assuming Samuel’s 2017 cap hit is $17M, Washington will have more than 15% of its salary cap going to the receiver group.  This is currently the second-most on the team behind only the defensive line group, which is at 21%.

Washington offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury used dual threat Austin Ekeler to great success this past season, and the team presumably thinks he can do the same with Samuel.  Washington is banking on the possibility that he can rebound from his fairly poor 2024 season.  Trading a fifth round pick is a good bet on a player who is at a minimum a solid NFL starter is a good deal.  If he proves to not be worth it, Washington can afford the $17M cap hit this year and aren’t tied to him beyond 2025.

The big concern here for Washington fans is that the 49ers know something about Samuel that’s causing them to be willing to take such a large financial hit just to get rid of a player for a 5th round pick in return.  If that’s the case, we’ll all find out together.  All in all, though, even if Samuel never climbs back to his 2021 production level, this appears to be a good gamble for Washington to take considering the team’s large amount of case space.

What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comment section.