The San Francisco 49ers' wide receiver corps has been battered by injuries pretty much all season. They knew they'd be waiting a while for Brandon Aiyuk to return to action, but his slow recovery from last year's torn ACL has been worse than they expected.
At the same time, the Niners have been without Ricky Pearsall, who looked like a breakout star, for all but four games, and saw tight end George Kittle go down in the season opener.
In the absence of so many quality targets in the passing game, San Francisco has desperately needed someone to step up. The prime candidate many would expect would be the receiver who demanded a new contract in the offseason, but more often than not in 2025, Jauan Jennings has been nowhere to be found.
Jauan Jennings' play in 2025 all but guarantees 49ers will let him walk in the offseason
After a breakout campaign that saw him haul in 77 passes for 975 yards in 2024, one would have thought Jennings could shoulder the load, at least for a little bit, while the 49ers waited for injury luck to finally break their way.
Instead, Jennings has been erratic and untrustworthy.
His 62.4 PFF grade ranks him 62nd among 83 qualified wide receivers, and his 28 catches for 324 yards have been thoroughly underwhelming for a team that has struggled to find a non-Christian McCaffrey target it can rely upon in the passing game.
Underwhelming production and disappearing in key moments are bad enough, but Jennings has also sabotaged his own trade value and gotten into it with head coach Kyle Shanahan on the sideline.
Jennings has struggled mightily to find soft spots against zone coverage, putting him in a bad position to change the narrative against the zone-heavy Arizona Cardinals in this Sunday's matchup. Another poor performance will only confirm that moving on after the season is the only course of action San Francisco can take.
A former seventh-round pick in 2020, Jennings had been a surprising success story, but after a while, the "grading on a curve" that occurs for late-round picks who are early in their careers comes to an end, and it becomes time to earn your keep or keep it moving.
So far in 2025, it's been the latter for Jennings, and don't expect that to change any time soon.