Fans were excited to see what the San Francisco 49ers did with their speedy third-round draft pick last year, wide receiver Danny Gray. Head coach Kyle Shanahan has been known to shy away from giving his rookie receivers many opportunities, but maybe the situation with Gray would be different.

It wasn't.


Gray was targeted only seven times last season. He caught just one of those passes for 10 yards, and that wasn't until Week 14.

What has Shanahan noticed about Gray in the wideout's second NFL offseason?

"I can tell he's in shape, but that's [all] you can tell on one day, is whether they're in shape or not," Shanahan said. "But we'll see how he handles this whole camp. I thought he had a pretty good OTAs, took a step forward, and came back in good shape, and we'll see, as he gets more reps and more opportunities and stuff, how much better he's gotten."

Deebo Samuel was also asked about Gray and what he has seen from the inexperienced 24-year-old.

"I was working out with Danny Gray a little bit last week," Samuel shared. "You can tell he's been working a lot. It's still a lot of things that we have to work on as a group and bring him on as well, maturing a little bit. But he kind of gets down on himself when he makes mistakes, but in this offense, in this game that we play, you're going to make mistakes. It's just like, how are you going to respond?"


What does a productive season look like for Gray? Shanahan just wants his young receiver to find a role for himself.

"I mean, I know what we, ideally, would like him to do," Shanahan said. "Anytime you're the fastest guy on the team and stuff, you are a guy who can make defenses defend all three levels. And if you can isolate on those routes very well and run those consistently, and when they don't honor it, we throw at you, and you catch it, that's a hell of a role. And if you can own that, he's got the advantage with that because of his 40-time.

"So that's a big one for him, but we also have other guys who can run, too. You also don't just put guys out there to do only one thing, so you just got to develop in everything. That's kind of what he was born to do, but he's got skill sets to where he can be out there in everything, but he's got to get more consistent so, eventually, he can dominate the role that he's the most talented at."

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