Former San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Deebo Samuel has said goodbye to his franchise of six seasons with an essay in The Players' Tribune, one that reaffirmed the love and respect he has for his San Francisco teammates, the coaching staff, and the team's fans despite a departure for Washington.
Perhaps most notably, Samuel begins the column published Thursday by detailing much more at length the tenor and contents of his trade conversations with head coach Kyle Shanahan and GM John Lynch, offering a first-person look inside one of the biggest moves this offseason.
"One day, back in January, I walked into Kyle’s office and said, 'Bro, I don’t think you actually know how hard it is for me to come in here and have this conversation with you,'" Samuel began.
"The relationship that me and Kyle got is ridiculous. You can ask anybody in the building. One minute, he wanna knock my head off, and the next he’s just going crazy, excited at something I’m doing. I’ve always felt like he coaches me harder than anybody else because at the end of the day, he knows I ain’t no sensitive-ass player. If you tell me I messed up, I take it on the chin and go fix it instantly. But our relationship is more than just 'The Coach' and 'The Player.' Kyle knows damn near everything that I’ve been through in my life, and I damn near know everything he done been through. It’s like that. It’s a bond you could never break. So, we talked it out. It was hard, in its own way. But more than anything, I was just proud of the way we both handled it, as men."
After the wideout spoke with Shanahan, he said he then went to Lynch, who "understood where I was coming from and gave me his perspective on everything."
The GM "called me and gave me permission to seek a trade, and we talked about why we thought it was a good move for both of us."
And the fact that both Shanahan and Lynch permitted a guy like Deebo—with over 4,000 career receiving yards and 1,000 career rushing yards, a Pro Bowl nod, and an All-Pro nod under his belt—to leave for another NFC team was not lost on the 29-year-old receiver.
"For John and Kyle to send me to a team in the NFC that was almost a Super Bowl contender, it just shows you the type of love and relationship that we have," he wrote. "I know at the end of the day, they didn’t have to do that. So, it’s not a lick of bad blood when it comes to me and that organization. It’s always love."
Samuel concluded the missive with a thank you to "everyone from the top of the 49ers organization on down," as well as the fans, who "made a kid from Spartanburg, South Carolina's dreams come true.
"Alright, time to get back to work."
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Deebo Samuel Details 'Hard' Trade Conversation With Shanahan, GM in 49ers Goodbye.
