The San Francisco 49ers’ wide receiver corps has been battered by injuries pretty much all season. They knew they’d be waiting a while for Brandon Aiyuk to return to action, but his slow recovery from last year’s torn ACL has been worse than they expected.
In the absence of so many quality targets in the passing game, San Francisco has desperately needed someone to step up. The prime candidate many would expect would be the receiver who demanded a new contract in the offseason, but more often than not in 2025, Jauan Jennings has been nowhere to be found.
After a breakout campaign that saw him haul in 77 passes for 975 yards in 2024, one would have thought Jennings could shoulder the load, at least for a little bit, while the 49ers waited for injury luck to finally break their way.
Instead, Jennings has been erratic and untrustworthy.
His 62.4 PFF grade ranks him 62nd among 83 qualified wide receivers, and his 28 catches for 324 yards have been thoroughly underwhelming for a team that has struggled to find a non-Christian McCaffrey target it can rely upon in the passing game.
Underwhelming production and disappearing in key moments are bad enough, but Jennings has also sabotaged his own trade value and gotten into it with head coach Kyle Shanahan on the sideline.
Jennings has struggled mightily to find soft spots against zone coverage, putting him in a bad position to change the narrative against the zone-heavy Arizona Cardinals in this Sunday’s matchup. Another poor performance will only confirm that moving on after the season is the only course of action San Francisco can take.
A former seventh-round pick in 2020, Jennings had been a surprising success story, but after a while, the “grading on a curve” that occurs for late-round picks who are early in their careers comes to an end, and it becomes time to earn your keep or keep it moving.
Trevor Zegras had two goals and an assist in regulation, then got the only score in the shootout to give the Philadelphia Flyers a 6-5 win against the St. Louis Blues on Friday night.
Christian Dvorak also had two goals and an assist, and Owen Tippett had a goal and three assists for the Flyers. Samuel Ersson finished with 12 saves as Philadelphia extended its point streak to 3-0-2 and improved to 6-2-2 in its last 10 games.
Robert Thomas, Jimmy Snuggerud and Jordan Kyrou each had a goal and an assist, and Justin Faulk and Jimmy Holloway also scored for the Blues, who have a four-game point streak (2-0-2). Cam Fowler had two assists and Jordan Binnington stopped 25 shots.
After Thomas failed to score on the Blues’ first attempt ofhe tiebreaker, Zegras scored on the Flyers’ first try. Ersson then denied attempts by Snuggerud and Holloway to preserve the win.
The Flyers outshot the Blues 5-1 in the scoreless overtime.
Holloway put the Blues ahead 4-3 — their third lead of the night — 40 seconds into the third period with a shot from the left circle. It gave him a goal in three straight games.
Thomas’ one-timer from between the circles gave St. Louis its second two-goal lead of the night at 4:56.
Dvorak again pulled the Flyers back within one from between the circles at 7:53, and Tippett tied it 5-5 from the high slot with 9:31 remaining.
Faulk’s one-timer off a feed from Fowler went over Ersson’s blocker to push the Blues’ lead to 3-1 at 6:54 of the second.
Dvorak knocked in a loose puck from the right side of the goal 23 seconds later to pull the Flyers back within one.
Zegras got his second of the night with 1:36 remaining in the middle period to tie it 3-3.
Kyrou got the Blues on the scoreboard 1:19 into the game, taking the puck from Zegras on the right side near the red line and skating in and beating Ersson from the right circle.
Zegras tied it at 8:18 of the first, scoring from the inside edge of the right circle on a rush.
Snuggerud put the Blues ahead 2-1 at 9:42 as he got a pass from Thomas in the slot and fired it past Ersson.