Deebo Samuel And The Niners Showed How Dangerous They Can Be In Blowout Of The Cardinals

After missing two games with a hamstring injury, Deebo Samuel returned in Week 10 with a relatively light workload against the Chargers, with six touches for 51 yards in a 22-16 win. It was the first game with both Samuel and Christian McCaffrey on the field together and, with Samuel still getting back into game shape, the Niners leaned more heavily on their new acquisition.

However, on Monday night in Mexico City, Samuel returned to form with 10 touches (seven catches and three carries) for 94 yards and one touchdown on a sensational 39-yard run in the third quarter that signaled the start of the Niners rout.

Prior to this week, we got a chance to speak with Samuel on behalf of Snickers’ Rookie Mistake campaign, and the 49ers star explained that he and McCaffrey just needed some time to get comfortable together, being that they share some of the same space on the field, but once they did it’d be “special.” That was on display on Monday night and the Cardinals defense eventually became unraveled as they tried to handle all of the weapons the Niners have, from Samuel to McCaffrey to Kittle to Aiyuk.

There’s no secret that San Francisco’s goal is to win a Super Bowl this year, and Samuel said the biggest lesson from the Niners’ recent close calls has been that one mistake can make the difference come playoff time. With as much talent as they now possess offensively, they can apply so much pressure to defenses that, as they showed on Monday, they can be patient and wait for the opposing defense to be the one to make those mistakes this year.

With the attention Samuel, McCaffrey, and Kittle command, San Francisco can exploit one-on-ones in other places, particularly in red zone situations, with Aiyuk being the beneficiary of that on Monday night.

The discipline required to keep this Niners team in front of you for 60 minutes is something few teams possess, and provided Jimmy Garoppolo continues to make the right reads, San Francisco is going to be one of the favorites in the NFC when you couple the explosive potential of this offense with a sensational defense.