The NFL’s annual scouting combine hasn’t even wrapped, yet its teams are already quickly transitioning into the roster construction phase ahead of the start of the new league year later this month.
Friday, the Los Angeles Rams revealed that QB Matthew Stafford would return for the upcoming season after he’d been permitted to assess his market value with other teams. Saturday evening, the San Francisco 49ers agreed to trade WR Deebo Samuel to the Washington Commanders – a deal that cannot be consummated until the 2025 league year officially commences at 4 p.m. ET on March 12 … though the Commanders did not-so-slyly acknowledge their big acquisition on X. That digital savvy is among the components of the winners and losers of this pending transaction:
WINNERS
Jayden Daniels
Washington’s recently crowned Offensive Rookie of the Year, Daniels arguably crafted the greatest rookie season ever by a quarterback, largely responsible for sparking the Commanders’ unexpected run to the 2024 NFC championship game. Yet that didn’t mean Daniels didn’t need his arsenal to level up in order to ease his own burden given Pro Bowl WR Terry McLaurin was the only Washington player who surpassed 1,000 yards from scrimmage in 2024 – and barely so with 1,098. The more dangerous teammates Daniels has at his disposal, the less defenses can focus on him and levy the hits the young QB still needs to learn to better avoid.
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Washington Commanders social media department
Since the Samuel trade cannot become official quite yet, neither the Commanders nor 49ers could officially announce it Saturday. San Francisco’s social media channels were largely quiet. But Washington slipped in a nice alternate reference to another famous Deebo, one that anyone who’s seen the movie “Friday” would immediately understand. Bravo. Raise Hail.
Los Angeles Rams
The reigning NFC West champions spent Friday securing their quarterback for 2025 while extending the contract of his left tackle, Alaric Jackson, for three years. A day later, the Rams watched their archrivals lose one of their primary weapons, San Francisco TE George Kittle admitting to USA TODAY Sports last month that the Niners ‘can’t really replace Deebo” once it became apparent a divorce was imminent. This shapes up as a tough division top to bottom for 2025, so any diminishment elsewhere should be something of a boon to LA.
Deebo Samuel
After six seasons in Silicon Valley, he wanted out – after, by some metrics, his least productive season (career-low 8.7 yards per touch) – and got his wish. Now Samuel heads to a team with a multi-dimensional quarterback who should help leverage his own versatile skill set while reuniting with GM Adam Peters, who served in San Francisco’s front office when Samuel was a second-round draft pick in 2019. A change of scenery and a chance to win seems like a pretty soft landing for Samuel, who will make $17.6 million in the final year of his contract.
Brock Purdy
Parting with Samuel will cost the 49ers a $31.6 million dead cap hit in 2025. But it does clear him off the books for a team that’s in negotiations with Purdy, San Francisco’s QB1 since late in the 2022 season and a man who’s finally eligible for the lucrative extension he’s definitively earned.
TRADE GRADES: More on the Deebo Samuel deal
LOSERS
Brock Purdy
When you’re coming off your worst season – from both the statistical and team success standpoints – it doesn’t help to lose a player like Samuel, who can line up in so many places and thrive in so many disparate offensive roles. Still, big a loss as Samuel is, Purdy and Co. should largely recover if RB Christian McCaffrey and WR Brandon Aiyuk return to health in 2025, and 2024 first-round WR Ricky Pearsall makes a significant jump in his development.
Deebo Samuel
He’ll be 30 a year from now. He was something of a malcontent on occasion with San Francisco. He’ll be charged with fitting into Kliff Kingsbury’s offense, where he’ll slot in as WR2 behind McLaurin – all factors that could make it tough for Samuel, who’s more playmaker than polished route runner, to land a lucrative third contact in 2026 … unless the cap-flush Commanders make that a moot point by extending him first.
Los Angeles Rams
Like Samuel had been, LA’s Cooper Kupp is a wideout on the trade block. They are drastically different players, and Kupp has two more years remaining on his contract instead of one. But given how much he is owed (nearly $40 million through 2026), combined with the fact that Samuel only fetched a fifth-round draft pick in return, it probably means the Rams shouldn’t expect a substantial return for Kupp, the Super Bowl 56 MVP.
Philadelphia Eagles … for now
The reigning Super Bowl champions are waiting in the midnight green wings ahead of the new league year, even as the Commanders – Washington is fast shaping up as Philly’s primary challenger in the division – are already upgrading. Remember, it’s been two decades since a team has won back-to-back NFC East crowns, and Philly is likely to lose several key free agents … though EVP/GM Howie Roseman usually seems to have a trump card up his sleeve.
Jonathan Allen
The veteran defensive tackle is trying to broker a trade of his own out of the nation’s capital and, per ESPN, nearly headed to San Francisco as part of the Samuel package – and playing in Robert Saleh’s defense is typically a boon to D-linemen. But, for now, Allen remains a Commander … and in limbo.
San Francisco 49ers
Remarkable nugget: Since the start of the 2003 season, the Niners have either advanced as far as the NFC championship game every year … or missed the playoffs entirely, including in 2024. As Samuel packs his bags and Purdy prepares to collect his bag, it’s hard to see San Francisco improving appreciably in 2025 – especially given the swirling unknowns as Aiyuk and CMC try to return to their pre-injury production of the 2023 campaign, when the 49ers lost Super Bowl 58 in overtime. The Round 5 draft choice obtained in exchange for Samuel – and he was a team sparkplug off the field, too, volatile as he could be at times – doesn’t seem likely to help much, especially at a time when the (mostly) young Rams seem to be on the rise, while the Arizona Cardinals and Seattle Seahawks are also on the come up. Kind of feels like the Niners might be a better bet to miss postseason in 2025 than getting back to the NFC title round.
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