San Francisco 49ers players are understandably excited to get veteran wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders in the building and onto the football field. Not only does the former Denver Bronco immediately become the most experienced wideout on the team, but one of the most experienced players, period.
Sanders is in his 10th NFL season. Only two 49ers players (Gould, Staley) have more pro experience on their resumes.
Cornerback Richard Sherman comes just shy of matching Sanders' experience. He is in his ninth NFL season. Nick Wagoner of ESPN caught up with Sherman on Tuesday and asked for the defender's thoughts on the addition of Sanders.
"Man, he's incredibly dynamic," Sherman told Wagoner. "I think he's going to be great in our offense. Obviously, Kyle (Shanahan) does a great job of using speed and explosiveness, and him coming from a similar system to ours, it will make this transition pretty seamless and easy. I'm sure Kyle is licking his chops on integrating him in (into the offense)."
Sanders has 367 receiving yards this season to go along with his two touchdowns. The receiving yards total tops any other 49ers receiver this season and is second on his new team only to tight end George Kittle, who has racked up 376 yards. In fact, if you combine the yardage total (349) by San Francisco's two leading wideouts, Marquise Goodwin and Deebo Samuel, it still comes short of Sanders'.
Sanders also believes he should be able to pick up Shanahan's system pretty quickly, thanks to the offense run in Denver by offensive coordinator Rich Scangarello, who spent his last two NFL seasons as San Francisco's quarterbacks coach.
"We kind of run a similar offense," Sanders said on Tuesday, "and just talking to Rich, he was pretty much just telling me that it's the same offense, different concepts, but I'll be able to pick it up easy."
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