The 49ers second round pick was a guest on Matt Maiocco’s 49ers Insider Podcast. We have some timestamps.
I think a lot of us are going to throw style to the wayside when referring to San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Deebo Samuel. He’s just Deebo. I don’t care if I need to call him Samuel. He’s not Tyshun “Deebo” Samuel. Just Deebo.
Turns out he did in fact get the name from the character on Friday. For those of you who haven’t seen the movie, Deebo was the neighborhood bully who caused all sorts of chaos through various thefts and eventually gets his towards the end of the flick.
Samuel has seen the movie and in his appearance on Matt Maiocco’s 49ers insider podcast they got right to how he got the name:
“It all came from when I was a little kid,” Samuel said via the 49ers Insider Podcast. “My father said I used to take stuff and bully kids when I was little. So he gave me the nickname ‘Deebo’. Growing up, it just stuck, even when I went to college. Even with the Deebo name, I figured they were going to start calling me Tyshun.”
It’s not like it’s a name Samuel hates. He’s fine with being called Deebo and even likes to attribute the name to a bully-like presence on the field.
“You gonna punish anybody who gets in front of you,” Deebo said.
The podcast has some great stuff on Samuel growing up with a brother who’s done some hard time and tutelage from Marcus Lattimore while at South Carolina. If you remember, Lattimore was drafted by the 49ers in the fourth round of the 2013 NFL draft.
As per usual, the podcast is worth a listen and I’ve timestamped it below. You can listen to it using the widget above, or click here if it doesn’t appear.
00:45 – Being nicknamed after the character in the movie Friday
02:00 – Growing up in Spartanburg, South Carolina/family
02:54 – His brother’s mentorship
05:38 – Working with Marcus Lattimore while at South Carolina
06:53 – Breaking his ankle in his junior season/his kick-off return potential
08:08 – Numbers in his senior year
09:02 – Playing in the Senior Bowl for Kyle Shanahan
10:04 – Getting a sense the 49ers liked him and the draft process
11:03 – Thoughts on landing with Kyle Shanahan and the 49ers
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