Receiver Deebo Samuel Sr. is back in San Francisco, and back in the number he wore from 2019 through 2023: 19.
Coach Kyle Shanahan explained on Saturday that any contract-driven awkwardness from years past is a non-issue now.
"Deebo's always been one of the closest guys we've been to, just relationship-wise," Shanahan told reporters. "When Deebo went through his contract negotiations, [I'll] try not to put words in his mouth, but I think he thought it'd be advantageous to make it look like there was a little bit of a battle. Sometimes that helps, sometimes it doesn't. . . .
"Those OTAs [in 2022], I was at Deebo's house on the eighth OTA day, and I was talking about how all that was just BS. He came to minicamp. We had a great summer together. I think he signed the first day back at training camp. We got over that in OTAs. That was just stuff from the negotiating periods back in April and stuff. There were stuff, definitely, that made me like, â??What the hell is going on?' We're not around Deebo. Then we see him in OTAs and we got to talk man-to-man and it was fine as soon as we got with each...