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With the news that the San Francisco 49ers have allowed Deebo Samuel to seek a trade, I removed him from the 49ers' 2025 projections. He joins Davante Adams, Chris Godwin, Tee Higgins, Cooper Kupp and several other wide receivers that I will not project until I have more confidence in where they'll play and who they will be catching passes from.

The other side of this coin, which I will address when and if Samuel finds a new home, is the opportunity available in San Francisco. This offense has been one of the best in football but we often enter the year with a "too many mouths to feed" outlook. For example, Brandon Aiyuk has never seen more than 114 targets in a season despite being viewed as one of the best wide receivers in football. Aiyuk is coming off of a torn ACL and MCL, so I have major doubts about whether he'll crack that number in 2025 either. That injury recovery only enhances the potential opportunity for everyone else in San Francisco.

The first and most obvious benefactor of a Samuel trade would be Jauan Jennings. Jennings set career highs across the board in 2024 with 77 catches for 975 yards and six touchdowns on 113 targets. He did that in 15 games, though the volume was uneven. In the nine games he played at least 70% of the snaps, Jennings caught 56 passes for 694 yards and six touchdowns. That's a WR1 pace. It's almost THE WR1 pace. 

The second big winner at wide receiver could be Ricky Pearsall. He had an up-and-down rookie year in terms of production, but the 2024 first round pick caught 14 passes for 208 yards and two touchdowns in his final two games. I trust end of season splits more from rookie wide receivers than just about anyone else. If Samuel gets dealt and Aiyuk isn't ready for the start of the season, Pearsall could be a borderline WR2 to start 2025.

For now, I'm pretty low on all the 49ers wide receivers. Jennings is the highest projected at WR36 and Pearsall is still projected as a bench receiver at best. But they should be two of the best early values if Samuel is traded. If we start to hear talk about Aiyuk beginning the year on the PUP? Both of these guys will skyrocket in the rankings. That's assuming, of course, that the 49ers don't make another significant addition at the position in the next three months.

Garrett Wilson, Jalen McMillan, Andrei Iosivas, and Jordan Whittington are other wide receivers who could see their projected targets increase in the coming months if the players we think are leaving actually leave.

Here are my way-too-early projections for the wide receiver position in 2025: