Deebo Samuel declared that there is ‘nothing wrong’ with him and demanded the ball in a now-deleted X post.
He was given his chance to prove it on Thursday Night Football – and let it slip through his hands.
The San Francisco 49ers star, who signed a $71.55million extension in 2022, had two drops – including a potential touchdown – in a 12-6 defeat to the Los Angeles Rams.
With the Niners all but certain to miss the playoffs, former NFL superstar Shannon Sharpe urged Deebo to return to social media in an astonishing rant.
“The thing is with Deebo, he has to understand it’s funny how the football gods will humble you,” he said on his Nightcap podcast.
“He’s complaining, he put up a tweet and then he took the tweet down, and now here it is, for all the world to see, this your opportunity, now look what you did.
“If it wasn’t raining we’d have seen you wet the bed, but your coat’s wet so we don’t really know what you did.
“You did all that talking, ‘Oh I want the ball, ain’t nothing wrong with Deebo.’ Bro, you’re not the same.
“They showed the cut-up, you had no separation. Even the ball he didn’t get, there was no separation, how was Purdy gonna drop the ball in there?
“I don’t get these guys, they start reading the comments, ‘Oh Deebo you should do this, or you should go somewhere else,’ You start getting high on your own supply and you start feeling yourself.
“Then, when you get the opportunity, the 49ers put you in a situation where you can make plays, you come up small.
“Now I want you to go on there, just like you tweeted, ‘Nothing wrong with Deebo,’ say, ‘I let my team down tonight, I had an opportunity to make a play and I didn’t, I had a false start.’ That’s what you have to do.”
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Brock Purdy struggled to find his weapons in a rain-soaked Levi’s Stadium.
With the score tied at 3-3 in the third quarter, he put a crucial third-down throw right on Deebo, who charged for the end zone but forgot to bring the ball with him.
“Purdy was spraying the ball over the field,” added Sharpe. “But he did have an opportunity to get a TD and Deebo dropped it.
“He anticipated the scene and he had his mind on probably scoring a TD and he just flat-out dropped it. Dropped a touchdown. There is no other way around it.”
Deebo ended up with three catches for 16 yards off seven targets after two big drops.
The 28-year-old also went missing in a lifeless 38-10 defeat to the Green Bay Packers.
Samuel had just one reception for 21 yards off four targets against Green Bay.
He declined to speak with the media after the game, a decision widely criticized by fans who expect more from a captain.
The Niners have now lost eight times this season and have a less than 1% chance of making the playoffs.
Locker room issues spilled over onto the field as linebacker De’Vondre Campbell refused to play.
Kyle Shanahan turned to Campbell when Dre Greenlaw went down in the third quarter.
But the frustrated 31-year-old put a towel over his head and walked down the sideline into the locker room with his helmet in his hand.
“He said he didn’t want to play today,” Shanahan confirmed. “That was in the third quarter.”
“We’ll figure out something. I don’t know that right now,” he added when asked whether Campbell had a future on the team.
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