After a tumultuous start to his NFL career that was anything but normal, wide receiver Ricky Pearsall impressed both 49ers general manager John Lynch and coach Kyle Shanahan.
The two figureheads spoke about the rookie’s ability to persevere and put together a productive campaign after missing out on the benefits of organized team activities and training camp.
“I thought Ricky had an unbelievable season,” Shanahan said Wednesday in an end-of-season press conference. “I know the gunshot wound is the biggest, obviously, but I’ve never had a rookie player miss all of OTAs and training camp and have much of a successful rookie year. It’s tough to do that.”
Shoulder and hamstring injuries sidelined Pearsall before the 2024 NFL season even started, not to mention a gunshot wound from an attempted armed robbery on Labor Day weekend. Pearsall still finished the year with 31 receptions on 46 targets for 400 yards and three touchdowns.
Pearsall’s resilience is noteworthy — the 24-year-old made his way back to the field after missing the first six games of the year. After the 49ers finished the season with a 6-11 record, the rookie surprised Lynch during his exit interview with an overwhelmingly positive attitude.
“Some of these rookies are, typically, they’re just done,” Lynch said. “You think about it, long college year, right to combine training, you get drafted, you go OTAs, all that. Ricky, one thing he said to me, ‘Mr. Lynch, I just want to keep playing because I feel like I’m just getting my feet underneath me.’ So that’s really cool that he has that excitement and he’s going to use that.
“I said, ‘Now the key is you use that to motivate you through this offseason. And the best players, they don’t ever take a rest. They shutter down the intensity and things like that, but they never rest.’ And so, his mindset I can tell is right. He’s a really good football player. Proud of the way he handled a lot of adversity, things that nobody could anticipate and work through it. And I think we’re going to have a really good football player.”
Pearsall’s production was almost like a bonus to Shanahan. After Pearsall missed so much of his first season, his coach had no expectations for the rookie. But when the offense needed another playmaker after losing so many starters to injuries, including Brandon Aiyuk and Christian McCaffrey, Pearsall took on a bigger role.
“I knew he would be way behind because of that situation,” Shanahan said. “And then to get a gunshot wound kind of made me think that we were going to get nothing from him, just in terms of how could we, and how hard that would be on him.
“But how quick he came back from that and then when he did, just to watch him go through rookie things in a live NFL game and then having to watch him come back from that stuff throughout the year and still hit a rookie wall, without a foundation of an offseason, I thought it was a huge success for him this year.”
Pearsall already has shared that he will be meeting up with Brock Purdy in Arizona during the offseason to get some bonus throwing sessions under their belts, which will only help them hit the ground running when the 49ers reconvene for the start of the 2025 season.