Niners Nation
Amid several injuries at the wide receiver position for the 49ers, Gabe Davis made his pitch to join the San Francisco offense.
The 49ers are dealing with a fair bit of attrition at the wide receiver position.
Brandon Aiyuk is still recovering from the devastating knee injury he suffered last season and, while Ricky Pearsall appears set to return from his hamstring issue imminently, Jacob Cowing sustained a similar injury in the 49ers’ first practice of training camp.
In addition, the 49ers have still yet to sign Jauan Jennings to a contract extension, though he is continuing to practice and is clearly on good terms with the team.
Amid their injury issues at wideout, the 49ers signed two receivers in the form of Equanimeous St. Brown and Quintez Cephus.
And another who visited with San Francisco earlier in the offseason has made it clear he would love to be added to the depth chart.
Gabe Davis, who remains a free agent after his time with the Jacksonville Jaguars came to an end, appeared on ‘Up and Adams’ on Thursday.
He said of the 49ers:
“I went on a visit there, it was awesome. I have a lot of teammates from UCF and previous players like Mac Jones and Isaiah Hodgins that were there. So definitely a team that I’m interested in for sure. San Fran is a nice spot, it’s a great team with great players. I talked to Christian [McCaffrey], I met George [Kittle] and I talked to a lot of the people out there and it’s awesome. San Fran is definitely a spot that I’m looking at. Shanahan’s the man, he knows how to call an offense, right? And they just got a lot of great weapons around there.”
Davis’ abilities as a deep-ball threat potentially make him an appealing option to the 49ers. As recently as 2023, Davis ranked 10th in Pro Football Focus receiving grade on targets of 20 yards or more.
His 29 touchdowns since entering the league in 2020 rank 18th among all wide receivers in that span, though only two of those came in his lone season in Jacksonville, which was ended prematurely by a torn meniscus.
For all Davis’ complimentary words, the 49ers may be reluctant about adding another receiver coming off a knee injury, especially when they already have several potential deep-ball threats in the likes of Demarcus Robinson, Cowing (whose injury does not appear to be serious) and rookie Jordan Watkins. In 2023, Aiyuk had the highest passer rating when targeted (148.3) among receivers with at least 20 targets of 20 yards or more, per PFF.
With the 49ers’ problems at wideout likely to be short-lived, it looks as if Davis’ expression of desire to join the Shanahan offense will fall on deaf ears.
