The Deebo Samuel Sweepstakes Is Exposing Which NFL Teams Actually Understand Receiver Construction in 2024

Let me be crystal clear about something right off the bat. The fact that Deebo Samuel is still looking for a new home as training camps open across the league is not a market failure. This is not some mystery that needs solving. This is a referendum on how many NFL front offices truly understand what they are looking at when they evaluate a receiver in the modern game. The teams circling Samuel right now, the ones genuinely positioning themselves to land him, they understand something that most of the league still refuses to accept.

Deebo Samuel is not a traditional wide receiver. This is not an insult. This is the most important sentence you need to understand before we go any further. Samuel is a chess piece. He is a football player that offensive coordinators design plays around, not someone you just plug into a route tree and hope he beats his man vertically. The Raiders, the Colts, and whoever else is seriously kicking tires on this situation right now, they are not looking at Samuel as a slot option or a vertical threat. They are looking at him as a hybrid weapon that can line him up anywhere from the backfield to split him wide and attack mismatches all over the field. This is why most teams cannot figure out what to do with him.

Here is what happened in San Francisco. The 49ers had a receiver who could do things that very few players in the NFL can actually do. Samuel is explosive. He is strong. He can catch the football in traffic. He can run after the catch with power. He can line up as a pseudo running back. He can be a blocker. He can operate in space. All of that is wonderful, except Kyle Shanahan's system got weird with him. The 49ers asked Samuel to be too many things in too many different spots. They wanted him to be the answer to every personnel problem they had. That is not the problem with Deebo Samuel. That is the problem with how San Francisco utilized him. Big difference.

Let me talk about the Raiders for a moment because this is a landing spot that makes more sense than people realize. Las Vegas is entering a season where they have genuine questions about what their receiver room looks like beyond Davante Adams. Are they ready to compete? Not really. But they have the cap space and they have the organizational flexibility to swing for a player like Samuel. The problem is that the Raiders have to know exactly what they are doing with him. They cannot just sign him and hope it works out. They need an offensive coordinator who understands how to weaponize a player like this. This is where Las Vegas struggles. Their offense has been in flux. Their play calling has been inconsistent. The Raiders would be a curious spot for Samuel because they might have the pieces, but I am not convinced they have the vision.

The Colts situation is different and potentially smarter. Indianapolis is a team that desperately needs an offensive spark. Shane Steichen came in to fix the quarterback position and prove that Jonathan Taylor can be the centerpiece of an offense that moves the ball efficiently. What the Colts lack is explosiveness in the receiver room. Michael Pittman Junior is a fine player. He is consistent. He does what you ask. But he is not a player that creates explosive plays on his own. Deebo Samuel is exactly what Indy is missing. He is the kind of player that can take a screen pass and turn it into something dangerous. He can line up in the backfield and become a potential runner. He can be sprayed across the formation and exploit defensive weaknesses. If the Colts bring in Samuel, they actually have a realistic pathway to becoming a legitimate offensive threat in the AFC South. This makes sense to me.

But here is the real issue that nobody wants to talk about. Why is a player of Deebo Samuel's caliber even available right now? This is the question that matters. Samuel is 29 years old. He is still explosive. He is still capable of being a difference maker. The 49ers wanted out of his contract because they had different priorities. They wanted to preserve money. They wanted to move on from what they perceived as a mismatch. Fair enough. But the fact that multiple teams have not already made aggressive moves to acquire him tells you something important about how the league values the skill set that he brings to the table.

Teams are still obsessed with traditional metrics. They want receivers who can create separation vertically. They want receivers who run clean routes. They want receivers who can line up in obvious receiver positions and win leverage matchups. Samuel does not fit that mold perfectly, and the NFL is allergic to players who do not fit the mold. This is a massive mistake. The game has evolved. Defensive schemes have become more sophisticated. Safeties are playing deeper. Corners are playing tighter. The ability to find mismatches and exploit them in space has become more valuable than ever. Samuel does this better than almost anybody else. The fact that more teams are not willing to sacrifice to get him is evidence of institutional laziness across multiple franchises.

Let me address the actual market dynamics here because they matter. Deebo Samuel is not going to be a top five receiver in terms of contract cost. That is the reality. His age, his injury history, his unique skill set, these are all factors that teams will use to negotiate harder than they would for someone like Tyreek Hill or Travis Kelce. But the compensation should be going the other way. Samuel should be more expensive than he actually is on the open market right now. This is not a case where the market is right. This is a case where the market is wrong.

The question for the Raiders and the Colts is whether they are comfortable being contrarian. Are they willing to take a player that the San Francisco 49ers decided they did not want and build something around him? That is what we are really talking about here. This is not about cap space. This is not about age. This is about having the organizational confidence to say that we believe in this player and we are going to structure our offense around his strengths. The 49ers did not want to do that. They wanted to move on. They wanted to allocate resources elsewhere. The Colts and Raiders have a chance to prove that San Francisco was wrong.

I believe the Colts are the better fit because Steichen is a play caller who understands how to maximize multiple skill positions. He is not afraid to get creative. He is not afraid to put players in different spots and let them operate. Indianapolis with Jonathan Taylor as a run game foundation and Deebo Samuel as a hybrid weapon becomes a genuinely difficult offense to prepare for on Sundays. That should be an attractive proposition. The Raiders have the talent ceiling, but they have the coaching and philosophical questions that make it less of a sure thing.

The bottom line is this. Deebo Samuel should not be available this deep into the offseason if the league truly understood what he brings to the table. The fact that he is available tells you everything you need to know about how many NFL teams still operate based on outdated receiver evaluation. This is a mistake. This is a golden opportunity for the franchise that gets it right.

VERDICT: The Colts are the smart play here, but both the Raiders and any other team considering Samuel needs to understand they are not signing a traditional receiver. They are signing a football chess piece that requires architecture and vision to be successful. If you are not willing to build around him, do not waste the money. But if you are, you are getting one of the most dynamic skill position players in the game at a bargain rate. That is not a coincidence. That is an opportunity that most teams are going to squander.