San Francisco 49ers: 3 wide receivers who must step up in wake of Deebo Samuel injury
By Peter Panacy
No. 1: 49ers Wide Receiver Dante Pettis
If third-year wide receiver Dante Pettis needed a boost, he finally got the opportunity.
With Deebo Samuel out of the picture for the next couple of months-plus, the 49ers wide receiver room thins out a bit. And while there are still plenty of question marks about the depth chart, there are a lot of bodies vying to make the roster.
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Considering Pettis went from a probable WR1 or WR2 entering 2019 all the way to being inactive for the Super Bowl, it’s not hard to understand why he would be on the roster bubble.
Essentially, the Niners drafted Brandon Aiyuk because of Pettis’ fall from grace last season.
Now, however, Pettis has an excellent chance to bounce back and demonstrate why San Francisco moved up in Round 2 of the 2018 draft to grab him. His final five games that year were impressive enough, and he averaged over 70 receiving yards per game during that span. It isn’t as if those skills simply disappeared.
What Pettis needed was a beneficial context. And while Samuel’s injury is the last thing the Niners want to deal with at the position heading into 2020, it at least opens up some more opportunity for Pettis to turn his career around after what transpired last year.
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If he does, it might just save his spot on the regular-season roster.