If you were looking at social media on Friday, you might have come across a quote from Deebo Samuel regarding his trade from the San Francisco 49ers to the Washington Commanders. Winning was involved.
Samuel met with the Washington D.C. Media on Thursday. Early on, his post in the Player’s Tribune was referenced, where he said the Commanders were one of his top teams. And why was it his top team?
“I like winners,” Samuel said. “I like to win. I’m not one of your biggest losers.”
And as you might expect, if you go with that above sentence, you can see things look like he’s taking a shot at his former team.
Here’s the full quote:
“One, being in San Francisco, I like winners. I like to win. I’m not one of your biggest losers. They [the Commanders] went to the NFC Championship.”
If you take the whole quote, this seems a bit more tame. Samuel requested a trade, which he has said multiple times was a difficult thing to do. The 49ers allowed him to seek a trade partner, and Samuel wanted to keep winning. Enter: The Washington Commanders.
That’s it. He wanted to go to a contender. It's the same reason Brandon Aiyuk was shooting down trades to teams last year—he wanted to win, too. It had nothing to do with the 49ers.
You want a wide receiver who is taking a dig at his former team? Look no further than wide receiver Michael Crabtree in 2016, better known as the briefly lived Jim Tomsula era. Crabtree had his own brand of drama with the 49ers, starting right after he got drafted in 2009 and holding out until Week 7. When 2015 rolled around, he left in free agency for the then-Oakland Raiders.
It didn’t take long for Crabtree to take shots at his former team, saying he “needed a quarterback that could deliver the ball, and that was hungry like I was.”
There’s no way you can twist that quote. That is a shot. A shot at quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who was under scrutiny for regressive play. When you compare that to Samuel, the two are not the same.
Samuel said the Commanders were one of his top destinations because he wanted to win. It didn’t mean the 49ers were not winning. Context can help. We all know things deteriorated between him and the 49ers, but publicly saying the team didn’t win did not happen in that press conference.