49ers rumor news: Wide receiver Dante Pettis on the trade block?

The San Francisco 49ers didn’t shy away from trading players during the 2020 NFL Draft. But now wide receiver Dante Pettis is the latest player on the trade-rumor mill.

Before the 2020 NFL Draft, there were reports the San Francisco 49ers could be interested in trading away running back Matt Breida and/or wide receiver Marquise Goodwin as part of a draft-day deal.

Moving those two was precisely what happened.

Breida was shipped off to the Miami Dolphins in exchange for a fifth-round pick, which the Niners subsequently used on West Virginia offensive lineman Colton McKivitz, while Goodwin was part of a sixth-round pick swap with the Philadelphia Eagles.

If anything, it proved what Niner Noise’s Akshaj Dwivedula argued earlier: San Francisco won’t hesitate in moving a player if he winds up falling out of head coach Kyle Shanahan’s good graces. While Breida and Goodwin didn’t necessarily do anything wrong, aside from dealing with injury and suffer a dramatic fall-off in production, neither was part of Shanahan’s game plan moving forward.

So it shouldn’t come as a big surprise third-year wide receiver Dante Pettis is the next player on the trade-rumor mill.

ESPN’s Bill Barnwell put together a post-2020 NFL Draft piece highlighting each team’s most likely candidate to be moved now the draft is complete. Not surprisingly, he chose Pettis as the 49ers player most likely to be moved between now and Week 1:

"The 49ers cleared out some of their depth at running back and wide receiver by trading away Matt Breida and Marquise Goodwin during the draft, but the first-round pick the 49ers used on Brandon Aiyuk leaves them with too many wideouts. Aiyuk, Deebo Samuel and Jalen Hurd will make the roster, leaving Pettis, Kendrick Bourne, Richie James, Trent Taylor and Travis Benjamin to compete for what would likely be a max of three jobs.Pettis fell out of favor with Kyle Shanahan last season, so he might be the odd man out, even if he is the most talented wideout of that bunch. He also is the most likely to return a midround pick via trade."

As Barnwell pointed out, San Francisco wide receiver room is awfully crowded even if there are question marks after Bourne, Pettis and the team’s top receiver selected in the draft, Aiyuk. Even the Niners’ seventh-round NFL Draft choice, Tennessee’s Jauan Jennings, stands a good chance to make the back end of the depth chart.

The Niners are patiently optimistic about Hurd, too, although he missed all of 2019 with a serious back injury. Meanwhile, Taylor will look to continue his notable 2017 rapport with quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo.

Teams typically carry no more than six wide receivers on a regular-season roster. If Hurd is healthy, it means Pettis becomes an excess.

And as Shanahan has made clear, getting out of his proverbial “doghouse” isn’t an easy thing to do.

Yet it might not be quite the time to entirely give up on Pettis, either. While 2019 was an all-but-forgotten season, including Pettis being inactive for the Super Bowl, all one needs to do is go back and look at the tape from his rookie year. The former Washington standout can make plays, both in space and up against defensive backs:

This, too, can cut both ways, however. Plays like the ones above could be part of the selling point San Francisco describes in any would-be trade proposal for the wide receiver. If anything, the Niners would want to “sell high” even though they’d likely not be able to recoup the second-round pick given up for Pettis back in the 2018 NFL Draft.

A third- or fourth-round pick in return, though, would likely suffice.

That is, of course, if the 49ers ultimately decide moving on from Pettis is the move they want to make.