Off-Season Preview: WRs/TEs

In previous years, someone—typically Deebo or Kittle—would absolutely dominate touches in the passing game (or in Deebo’s case, the passing and running game). While that was great for fantasy owners and it let our guys soak in some much-earned nationwide appreciation, those outrageous target shares were largely the product of a passing attack that was—whether it was due to health, development, or roster construction—short on weapons. Things changed dramatically last season, and 2022 marked the most balanced the Niners’ receiving corps has ever been.

With the emergence of Brandon Aiyuk into a 1,000-yard receiver, the addition of CMC, and (relatively) healthy seasons from both Deebo and Kittle, the Niners spread the love in the passing game more so than they ever have under Shanahan. The result was the most efficient and effective passing offense in the ShanaLynch era. 

With all the big names under contract, our receiving room has very much earned an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” type of approach to this off-season. But the continued growth of our receiving unit in the coming year will have ripple effects on the salary cap decisions we’ll need to make in the next two or three.

Wide Receivers

UFAs: none
RFAs/ERFAs: Jauan Jennings (ERFA)

It’s doubtful there will be any legitimate movement at wideout as all of the team’s receivers are signed for 2023 except for Jennings, who is—as our top slot receiver who we’d only need to offer the veteran minimum—as easy a tender decision as there ever was. The only way the Niners don’t offer him one immediately is if they’re trying to lock him up on a multi-year deal instead. 

Any movement of note will likely happen on the back end of the roster, as the Niners would like to go through the off-season with at least twice the number of wideouts that they currently have. Practice squad holdover and special teamer Tay Martin will certainly be a part of team activities as we move into spring and summer. So will two guys who just inked futures deals with the Niners: Dazz Newsome—a second-year slot/return man with enough YAC upside to make sense as a special teamer/gadget project—and Tyron Johnson—a former five-star wideout with deep ball potential who was thrown onto the field for 12 games as a rookie in 2020 but has bounced between three teams in the two years since. Of those three, Martin seems like the most likely to stick—even if it’s just for special teams purposes—and any additional contributors will either come from free agent discount deals or the draft. Predicting the free agent movements of players vying for a sixth or seventh wideout spot is a bit of a fool’s errand, and we’ll discuss the draft closer to the event. So the emphasis for the Niners turns mostly towards continued development from within.

The Niners will almost certainly exercise Aiyuk’s fifth-year option this spring, giving them another year to wait on making a decision on a potential extension past his rookie deal. This could prove important because—while our cap situation is decently chill this off-season—it’s hard to envision a world where we can afford to keep Aiyuk, Kittle, Deebo, and CMC a year or two down the road. Due to that, 2023 will be a big year for evaluating how all our offensive pieces fit together, and how we plan to jigsaw them together for the next half-decade. 

While Aiyuk made huge strides in his third year in the offense, we’d love to see him add “deep ball threat” to his resume. I know that he’s been hurt more than most by the fact that we don’t huck it down the field often, but if he can truly stretch the field with regularity, we may be able to unlock yet another level of passing game efficiency.

For Deebo, his 864 yards and five scores from scrimmage were less than half of the yards and TDs he put up a year ago. Part of that was due to him missing four games due to injury. Part was the product of a much more balanced passing and rushing attack that didn’t have to force-feed him the ball. But there’s still room for improvement and reason to believe he’ll do just that.

Last year, Deebo spent the off-season away from the team as his agent negotiated a multi-year extension. This year, he’ll be in the building and participating in team activities throughout the spring and summer, which means valuable reps with Lance and (whenever he returns) Purdy—two guys who we took very few snaps beside in the lead-up to last season. All those distractions and hold-ups are now gone. So Deebo will be more free to attack self-improvement.

Many of the better defenses that we faced tried to eliminate Deebo by draping cornerbacks all over him—knowing that press man coverage would allow them extra numbers against the run, would make it easier to deny passes because of how often he runs short-to-intermediate routes, and would put defenders in easier tackling position if he got the ball. While it’s not super likely that Deebo ever becomes a deep ball maven, if he can improve against tight man coverage (and shore up the occasional drop) then we won’t have to lean as heavily on Aiyuk when teams show us Cover 1. That would help us tremendously in 2023 and would certainly factor into future roster decisions regarding both Aiyuk and Samuel.

In the slot, we have two unique different body types and skill sets. Ray-Ray McCloud isn’t often mentioned when talking about our horde of Swiss Army Knife offensive weapons, but he played both receiver and running back in college, and the hope is he’ll be more comfortable in year two in Shanahan’s scheme. We saw higher usage from him down the stretch—in part because Deebo was missing—and his running ability and big-play speed were on display on his 71-yard touchdown run against the Commanders. While our run-heavy nature means he’s unlikely to get massive snaps offensively, there’s hope that he can be deployed more efficiently and given more situations where his speed, shiftiness, and open-field running ability can be put on display.

Part of the reason Ray-Ray’s production won’t be coming from a massive increase in snaps is that our current starting slot receiver—and the biggest wideout we have on roster—has fully solidified himself as a starter over the past year and a half. Jauan Jennings isn’t a tremendous athlete, but he has carved out quite the niche as basically a slot fullback and offensive antagonizer who runs the occasional crosser and makes the (not-so-occasional) clutch third-down grab. While his ceiling may not be astronomical, his personality and play-style mesh perfectly with the Niners’ commitment to the run game, and I wouldn’t be shocked if the Niners re-up him on an under-market multi-year deal in hopes that he becomes a bigger, beefier Kendrick Bourne down the road. Jennings will never have the wiggle or smooth athleticism of KB, but he can make up for that with size and brawn if he continues to develop at his current rate.

Finally, last year’s third-rounder Danny Gray was basically a healthy scratch in 2022. While the idea of him blazing past corners and catching deep balls down the sideline was an off-season dream, Gray was always super raw, and when Lance went down, so too did much of Gray’s intended use as a rookie. That said, I’m not worried about his long-term projection. While it’s always a lot cooler when a rookie produces immediately, part of Gray’s appeal was in how raw he was and how—with his incredible speed and athleticism—there was a chance we locked up a bargain as long as we were patient. That said, we need Gray to advance enough this year to be confident that he could play decent snaps in 2024 because—as discussed above—we may need to make some tough decisions at that point.

Tight Ends

UFAs: Tyler Kroft, Ross Dwelley
RFAs/ERFAs: none

Every year our brass discusses bringing in a second tight end to take some of the load off of George Kittle, and—every year—we don’t quite accomplish that goal. It’s tough because Kittle is so valuable both as a blocker and as a receiver, but—with back-to-back snap count percentages in the nineties—getting Kittle off the field more could help preserve his body in both the short- and long-term. Additionally, having a second tight end who can catch the ball (or ideally catch and block) well opens up a lot of value in our 12 personnel play action sets.

While a double tight play action set was the set-up of the play where Purdy got hurt, we—and the Chiefs the game after—liked the double tight play action looks against the Eagles because—like many defenses these days—they have minimized their investment in linebackers and overall size in an attempt to go faster and defend the pass. While you can’t live in double tight personnel, having two reliable receivers at tight end can force defenses to play two-to-three linebackers when they’d prefer to be playing one-to-two. In essence, bolstering our double tight personnel would let us run the ball better from another look and hunt matchups more within another personnel grouping—the two things we like doing most as an offense.

But again, we can’t live in 12 personnel, nor should we be throwing fat stacks down on a second tight end. But while I think we’re past the point of spending legit money on a big-name free agent (remember when we were linked to Austin Hooper coming off a 75-catch season?), I wouldn’t be shocked to see us kick the tires on a lower-cost veteran (perhaps Austin Hooper, three years later, coming off a 41-catch season?) or add a rookie in the middle rounds of the draft.

If we don’t add another body, either Kroft or Dwelley (or both) could return in 2023, but I doubt there will be a mad rush to sign either until closer to training camp. We also still have Charlie Woerner, who—after a promising second season—saw his play and his snap count plummet in the back half of last year. Not sure what happened there, but a return to his 2021 form would—at the very least—assure us of a quality backup in case of injury and give us a bit more wiggle room to swing on an unfinished product in the draft. 

Either way, I’d expect a new body in the tight end room come training camp.

Go Niners 👍🏈