Deebo Samuel has one of the most unique skillsets in not just the current NFL, but NFL history. He’s close to joining a club that presently includes only one Hall of Famer.
Samuel had 48 receiving yards and 11 rushing yards for the San Francisco 49ers in their Week 15 win over the Arizona Cardinals. That performance moved his career receiving yards to 4,017 and rushing yards to 954.
As Kyle Madson of Niners Wire/USA Today detailed, Samuel can match an achievement only accomplished by Hall of Famer Charley Taylor as soon as Monday night’s game against the Baltimore Ravens.
“If Samuel on Monday night vs. the Ravens can rush for 46 yards and reach the 1,000-yard plateau, he’d become the second player in NFL history to post at least 4,000 receiving yards and 1,000 rushing yards in his first five seasons per the 49ers,” Madson wrote. “Charley Taylor, a Hall of Famer who spent his entire career in Washington, also hit those two marks with 4,150 receiving yards and 1,416 rushing yards in his first five years.”
What’s particularly notable about this is that the 49ers didn’t begin to consistently line Samuel up as a running back until 2021, his third NFL season. Over the 2019 and 2020 seasons combined, he had only 22 carries.
Should Samuel get there on Monday, he’d set a new season-high for rushing yards. His season-high to this point came in Week 2, when he rushed for 38 yards against the Los Angeles Rams.
