Kyle Shanahan says Deebo Samuel’s deleted complaints about not getting the ball are ‘water under the bridge’

It’s been a tough season for San Francisco 49ers star Deebo Samuel. Through 12 games, Samuel has only 40 catches for 553 yards and one touchdown. His 3.3 catches per game and 46.1 receiving yards per game averages are the lowest of his career. His 40.6% rushing success rate on 32 rushing attempts is, as well. After running for at least 225 yards in each of the last three seasons, Samuel has totaled just 92 yards on his 32 totes.

Samuel, though, insisted earlier this week that he isn’t struggling. In a since-deleted tweet, Samuel said that he’s, “Not struggling at all, just not getting the ball!” He also admitted that he’s, “a little frustrated for sure.”

Samuel is averaging 6.0 touches per game, which isn’t much less than the 6.5 he averaged last year. It’s down quite a bit from the 7.5 touches he averaged in 2022 and 8.5 he averaged during his 2021 All-Pro campaign. Niners coach Kyle Shanahan was asked Tuesday about whether or not he’d seen what Deebo said, and how he’d respond to it.

“Deebo and I talk every day. I understand Deebo saying that,” Shanahan said in his press conference. “Deebo wants to help us out, and the only way he helps us out is getting the ball more. We’d like to get it to him more and we’ll continue to work at that.”

Shanahan also said that he’d prefer Deebo not express his frustrations in public, but that it’s not necessarily a big deal to him.

“We’d always love things to stay in-house,” he said. “That’s probably why I don’t mess with social media. I’m sure I’d get worked up and stuff too if I was reading stuff about myself all the time. And then I’d maybe make a tweet or something too. 

“I mean is it a distraction in our building? No. I’ve got to answer questions about, it’s the first time I’ve talked about it is right here. But Deebo and I see each other every day and talk about stuff every day. So my advice is to not let the outside frustrate you, because just answering those things isn’t going to help you in any way. Usually only hurts you. But as far as like what we deal with and our relationships and our team, it’s water under the bridge.”

With Christian McCaffrey, Brandon Aiyuk and Jordan Mason all on injured reserve, the Niners certainly have a need for explosive playmaking. So far this year, it’s been Jauan Jennings and George Kittle doing that for the passing game, and Mason (pre-injury) and Isaac Guerendo (before he also got hurt last Sunday) doing it in the run game. Samuel is the one player who contributes heavily in both areas, but he’ll have to tap into what he had a few years ago in order to do it.