49ers turn focus to offense on Day 2 of NFL draft

SANTA CLARA - The 49ers had the worst group of wide receivers in the NFL last season.

Their leading receiver, Kendrick Bourne, gained just 487 receiving yards. The 49ers were the only team in the NFL that didn’t have at least one receiver gain at least 500 receiving yards in 2018. And on Feb. 14, 2019, they parted ways with their most experienced receiver, Pierre Garcon.

To fix their wide receiver problem, the 49ers drafted not one but two receivers Thursday night. They took South Carolina wide receiver Deebo Samuel with the fourth pick in Round 2, and Baylor wide receiver Jalen Hurd with the third pick in Round 3.

“We obviously don’t know how things are going to fall (in the draft), but these are two guys we felt very good about,” general manager John Lynch said in the 49ers auditorium Thursday evening. “There were other players we felt very good about as well, but these were the targets.”

Samuel, 23, caught 62 passes for 882 yards and 11 touchdowns for South Carolina in 2018. He also returned 23 kickoffs, averaged 24.8 yards per kick return and ran back one for a touchdown.

“When you turn this guy’s game tape on, you see one of the elite competitors in college football,” Lynch said. “You’re going to have to fight him. He’s going to fight for yards. That type of play is contagious. He has real juice. He can catch the ball and break away. He’s a thick guy. Not overly tall at 5-11½, but I think he plays big. He is strong, but he has juice to pull away from people and he can break tackles.”

One criticism of Samuel is he’s built more like a running back than a wide receiver, because he’s shorter than 6 feet and weighs 215 pounds. Some draft experts believe he can line up only in the slot, not outside.

“That stuff throws me off,” Shanahan said. “Playing on the outside, to me, has to do with being able to threaten guys on a go route. That has nothing to do with height. That has to do with how explosive you are and how fast you are. Can you run by people? That allows you to play outside the numbers. Deebo, to me, is a big receiver. Look at his body. Look how he runs with the ball. It hurts people to tackle him. It doesn’t hurt him as bad. That’s a physical receiver.”

Samuel may be a big receiver, but not as big the other receiver the 49ers drafted Thursday night. Hurd is 6-4, 217 pounds. He started his collegiate career as a big, bruising running back at the University of Tennessee, where he rushed 589 times for 2,844 yards and 20 touchdowns in two-and-a-half seasons.

Midway through Hurd’s junior season, he transferred to Baylor and had to take a season off per NCAA rules. In 2018, Hurd switched positions, became a wide receiver, caught 69 passes for 946 receiving yards and made four touchdown catches.

“He can do about everything,” Shanahan explained. “If he would have stayed a running back, I think he would have gotten drafted as an NFL running back. Today he got drafted as an NFL receiver, kind of. I believe if he tried to play tight end he would have gotten drafted as an NFL tight end. That’s pretty unique. I don’t remember being able to say that about any player I’ve studied before. He can help us in a lot of different ways.”

Shanahan said Hurd might become a full-time tight end in the future.

“Whatever the best advantage is. We’ll see where this goes. This guy could actually be put at running back, too. So it just allows a lot of versatility. I think that’s how we’ll use him.”

Hurd left Tennessee because he suffered a serious concussion, and decided to switch positions from running back to wide receiver so he could take fewer hits to the head. Tennessee didn’t want him to switch positions. They wanted him to remain a running back. So, he transferred.

“I wanted to just play longer and be more versatile,” Hurd said on a conference call with Bay Area reporters.

Hurd had injury issues in college. In addition to his concussion, he had two shoulder surgeries, plus a third surgery on his knee to repair a torn meniscus in December.

“Jalen looks good,” Lynch said. “We had a private workout with him a week ago, probably. He looks good. Whether he’s ready in the very first rookie mini-camp or not (a week from Saturday), I think we’ll monitor that and see exactly where he’s at.”

Samuel also had injury issues in college. In 2016, he pulled his hamstring and missed three games. And in 2017, he missed 11 games with a broken leg. He did not suffer any serious injuries in 2018.

“Deebo is ready to go,” Lynch said. “(He and Hurd are) just very physical football players. The brand of football they play sometimes will lend to (injuries). But we are going to work with them to try to keep them healthy, and we really like the guys we got.”

They couldn’t be worse than the guys they had before.