Will Deebo Samuel make it back to his 2021 production levels?
March 24, 2025
by Steve Thomas
We’ve debated Washington’s acquisition of wide receiver / running back / do-everything guy Deebo Samuel fairly extensively here at The Hog Sty, as has the rest of the Redskins Washington Football Team Commanders Washington football universe. Deebo is a high-profile player who signed a big contract with the 49ers a few years ago, so he’s been the subject of quite a bit of high-profile coverage regarding his declining performance since his All-Pro 2021 season.
In his six-year NFL career, Samuel 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 NFL 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.
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.
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.
Contractually, Samuel is in the final year of a three year, $71M contract extension and will count for just under $17.5M against Washington’s salary cap this season. This essentially amounts to a one year “prove it” deal for Washington.
The question of the day is whether Samuel can improve his performance and get back to the point at which he’s a plus-level player and be awarded with another large, multi-year contract.
In looking back at Samuel’s career, going all the way back to college at South Carolina, a few of relevant things stick out: first, he is a bit of a stereotypical diva wide receiver; second, he’s been susceptible to injuries; three, the decline in his performance was not tied to the decline in the team’s performance in general; and four, a change in personnel with the 49ers likely affected Samuel’s role on the team.
A video, by a creator called “KjSpeakz”, called “What Really Happened to Deebo Samuel? Is He Washed?”, goes into some detail about both his injury history and attitude issues. The diva shtick is a bit concerning. He was unhappy with his situation in San Francisco on multiple occasions and caused a series of minor controversies, including a trade demand after the 2021 season. Samuel seems to be a player whose attitude is inevitably going to go downhill at some point. That may be part of the reason why the 49ers didn’t want to offer him another contract extension – declining production coupled with mildly diva-like behavior isn’t normally conducive to long-term success.
As far as his injuries go, according to DraftSharks.com (click here to read), Samuel missed a total of 20 games in college because of injuries, resulting from a broken fibula and hamstring strains. Since then, he’s suffered injuries of some type in every season of his NFL career and has missed at least game every year, for a total of 18 games. His NFL injuries to date include multiple groin, hamstring, leg, and thigh strains, a fracture in his foot, an MCL strain, a hairline fracture in his shoulder, and a rib injury. DraftSharks rate Samuel as a “Very High Risk” for injury in 2025, with a 86.6% chance of injury, and project him to miss 3.4 games. I don’t necessarily think that this is the statistical be-all, end-all of injury analysis, and I neither endorse nor criticize their statistical process, but I do think it’s an indicator of the obvious: injuries are a pretty big concern for this player.
Furthermore, in looking at his year to year performance, it’s reasonable to believe these injuries have at least played some role in his production. Year after year of lower leg injuries for a receiver are bound to affect his performance. However, I doubt it is the sole reason behind his statistical decline. Also, the team’s overall performance didn’t fall off until last season. It’s important to note that in 2021, Jimmy Garoppolo was the starting quarterback, and it was prior to the arrival of Christian McCaffrey. The principal weapons beyond Samuel that year were Brandon Aiyuk and George Kittle. The entire focus of the offense obviously changed when McCaffrey arrived in 2022 and started to become the main offensive threat. Also, quarterback Brock Purdy was drafted in 2022, and took over as the starter from Garoppolo later that year.
The point here is that the changing nature of the 49ers offense may have been a factor in Samuel’s decline in gross numbers. Samuel’s chemistry with Garoppolo in 2021 in the passing game didn’t seem to develop in the same way with Purdy. However, this doesn’t explain his decline in his rushing statistics. In his high-water mark of 2021, he averaged 6.2 yards per carry, which included 3.1 yards per carry before contact and 3.1 yards per carry after contact. The latter would have been tied for #1 in the NFL if he had received enough carries to qualify, and the former would have been tied for 7th. Here are his numbers between 2021 and 2024:
2021: 6.2 yards per carry / 3.1 yards per carry before contact (7th if enough carries) / 3.1 yards per carry after contact (1st if enough carries)
2022: 5.5 yards per carry / 3.0 yards per carry before contact (tied for 13th if enough carries) / 2.5 yards per carry after contact (tied for 2nd if enough carries)
2023: 6.1 yards per carry / 3.8 yards per carry before contact (2nd if enough carries) / 2.3 yards per carry after contact (tied for 5th if enough carries)
2024: 3.2 yards per carry / 1.6 yards per carry before contact (tied for 44th if enough carries) / 1.6 yards per carry after contact (tied for 42nd if enough carries)
Here’s one more rushing statistic – attempts per broken tackle:
2021: 6.6 (2nd in NFL if enough carries)
2022: 14.0 (11th if enough carries)
2023: 9.3 (7th if enough carries)
2024: 42.0 (44th if enough carries)
For context, Derrick Henry was first by this measure in 2024 with 7.7.
Samuel’s effectiveness as a rusher was fairly high by these measurements through 2023, but fell through the floor in 2024. Simply put, he was completely ineffective as a runner in 2024. While he isn’t a full-time running back, it is a major part of his game and part of what made him such a threat. A decline in his rushing effectiveness is a big problem for a player like Samuel.
What we have, then, from San Francisco’s perspective, is a 29 year old physical player with an injury history, a diva attitude, and declining performance. It’s no wonder that that the 49ers let him go for just a 5th round pick in return.
What is Samuel’s possible performance for Washington this coming season? My guess is that he’ll have a pretty substantial improvement over last year’s results. First, I think his attitude is going to be tops – he’ll be in a new situation, with a team that played in the NFC Championship game and features the Offensive Rookie of the Year at quarterback, and he’ll be aiming for a new multi-year contract. Second, Washington doesn’t have the offensive weapons that San Francisco had – McCaffrey’s injury last year notwithstanding – so there should be more opportunities for him to excel in 2025. It isn’t reasonable to expect him to ever get back to his 2021 numbers. His true, natural production level is probably something less than that. However, he can become a serious threat to opposing defenses as long as his “High Risk” of injury doesn’t catch up with him.
The bigger question is whether Washington’s front office will believe that Samuel can replicate such a performance for a few years after that. Considering his age and history, I’m not so sure.