San Francisco 49ers field Deebo Samuel trade market interest, but nothing 'remotely close' to interesting them

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Two nights into the 2022 NFL draft, wide receiver Deebo Samuel is still a member of the San Francisco 49ers. If things turn out how the Niners hope, that will remain the case well into the future.

After Samuel told ESPN's Jeff Darlington about his trade request public last week, this week's draft became a sort of soft deadline for a deal to get done.

Despite that request, San Francisco general manager John Lynch said Monday he could not imagine a scenario in which he would trade Samuel. On Thursday, the Niners received interest in a deal but nothing stretched Lynch or coach Kyle Shanahan's imagination to the point where a deal became a reality.

«You'll consider anything,» Shanahan said. «You've got a responsibility to help your organization the most you can but there's no player like Deebo. It's hard to see how that helps your organization. So, you try to look into all the aspects of it and what people are willing to do and nothing was even remotely close that we thought it would be fair for the Niners.»

Multiple reports indicated the New York Jets were the team that made the biggest push to acquire Samuel in a deal that would have included the No. 10 overall pick but also would have involved a pick swap. The Niners declined those overtures and the Jets ended up using that selection on Ohio State wideout Garrett Wilson.

On Friday night, Shanahan addressed the situation for the first time publicly. He acknowledged he was «real surprised» and «disappointed a little bit» by Samuel's trade request but he also pointed out that in scenarios involving contracts, these things tend to happen.

Like Lynch earlier in the week, Shanahan declined to get into specifics of what spurred Samuel's trade request,