No matter who is at quarterback, 49ers expect their top weapons to be even better in 2023

SANTA CLARA — There are three quarterbacks participating in 49ers minicamp and another on the sidelines, but it doesn’t seem to matter who is throwing the ball when Brandon Aiyuk is on the field.

“I like watching Brandon Aiyuk dissect every single corner he goes against,” tight end George Kittle marveled after minicamp on Tuesday. “That’s really fun.”

Whether it’s Brock Purdy, Trey Lance, Sam Darnold or even Brandon Allen under center for the 49ers this year, they’re going to have four elite weapons at their disposal — Aiyuk, Kittle, Deebo Samuel and Christian McCaffrey — that should give the offense a chance to reach 6,000 yards for the third straight season.

They’re coming off back-to-back seasons with at least 6,000 yards for the first time since the early ‘90s, when Steve Young was piloting the offense.

Aiyuk surpassed the 1,000-yard threshold with 1,015 yards on 78 receptions and eight touchdowns last year, but the 25-year-old thinks he’ll be even better in his fourth NFL season.

Last week, he declared, “I’m about to take off.”

During offseason team activities and minicamp portions accessible to the media, Aiyuk has been using renewed explosiveness to create separation from anybody who tries to cover him.

Teammates have marveled over how good he’s looked, with Kittle proclaiming on Tuesday that “he’s definitely going to get over 1,000 yards this year, score a lot of touchdowns, and make a ton of big plays for us.”

The Niners haven’t had a wideout with back-to-back seasons with at least 1,000 receiving yards since Anquan Boldin in 2013-2014 and Terrell Owens from 2000-2003.

“The energy he has, he just figured it out,” Kittle said of Aiyuk. “Last year he was kind of a quiet assassin.”

Aiyuk was the first receiver in line for agility drills on Tuesday, with Samuel right behind him, though Samuel later moved to the sidelines for the competitive portion of the practice.

Samuel is taking it slow after a disappointing year he described as “awful” in 2022, when he saw his total yards drop from 1,770 in 2021 to just 864.

“I’ll never put nothing like that back on tape again,” he said Tuesday.

He could benefit from Aiyuk drawing more attention from opposing defenses.

“You can’t cover that boy in a phone booth right now,” Samuel said. “I’m seeing flashes of stuff I’ve never seen him do, how fast he is, how explosive he is, the separation he’s getting in and out of routes – you can tell he’s really detailed his offseason and is ready to go.”

With Aiyuk ready to take off, McCaffrey in tow for his first full season in Kyle Shanahan’s offense and Kittle expecting a much better year, Samuel won’t be the only playmaker on the field.

More weapons should lead to more competition for touches, but Sameul said, “I’m only competing with myself.”

Kittle, too, was frustrated with the way his season went last year, when he suffered a groin injury that kept him out until Week 3.

“Then I averaged like three catches for 30 yards for my next six games,” he said. “They pay me a lot of money so that’s kind of unacceptable from me. I was pretty upset with that.

“But I definitely got in the flow of things towards the middle half of the year. Was very confident in my run game, the way I was running routes, catching the ball, getting in the end zone. But over the course of the season my level of play increased and our whole team did.” 

Here’s one other guy to watch: second-year wide receiver Danny Gray.

A third-round pick out of Southern Methodist University last year, Gray struggled to find his way onto the field and made just a single catch over six games in 2022. But teammates said Gray looks much stronger and faster this year and should benefit from a full year learning Shanahan’s offense.

“He’s a lot better than where he left off,” Shanahan said. “Danny learned from his first season, how long that grind is… We saw it in the offseason, having a little better attention to detail, the way he came here in Phase 1 and 2, how he worked to get in shape. That’s what allowed him to have a good OTAs and go through a bunch of stuff. To me, he finally got in the shape where he can do a lot of stuff and be ready for training camp.”