3 burning questions for 49ers wide receivers in 2020

The 49ers wide receiver corps has some lofty expectations and notable questions heading into 2020.

For the first half of 2019, the San Francisco 49ers‘ group of wide receivers were anything but impressive, which ultimately forced general manager John Lynch’s hand to make the mid-season trade with the Denver Broncos for veteran wideout Emmanuel Sanders.

With Sanders in tow, the Niners managed to get enough production out of this group. And by the time the Super Bowl rolled around, head coach Kyle Shanahan relied heavily on the trio of Sanders, Kendrick Bourne and then-rookie wideout Deebo Samuel.

The Sanders trade highlighted some key problems, however. In an ideal world, considering San Francisco invested second-round NFL Draft picks for the position in back-to-back years, Lynch wouldn’t have had to make the trade with Denver. The fact the 49ers had to do this shed light on some of the questions the team had at the position last year.

And those questions rise to the surface even more heading into 2020, particularly with Sanders leaving for the New Orleans Saints in free agency.

Samuel and Bourne remain the only two bona fide and established contributors at the position with relatively few questions about what they offer. After that, though, there are a number of concerns.

How will San Francisco’s depth behind these two pan out? Despite a number of names on the depth chart, who’ll be the ones selected by Shanahan for the 53-man roster? Can the Niners avoid the same kind of lackluster numbers they endured at the position over the first half of 2019 this upcoming year?

Those are generic questions, of course. Yet there are some much more specific questions the team will have to address.

Here are three needing to be asked and answered.