The 49ers are back at it with another (seemingly) high-priced prank that likewise raised the heart rate of rookie victims.
A video began circulating over the weekend of Deebo Samuel presenting a $15,000 check to rookie receivers Isaiah Winstead and Ronnie Bell. The video, originally posted to Winstead's Instagram account, briefly showed an allegedly doctored bill that, among other things, included two separate chef specials that tallied $8,580 total.
That certainly is an inordinate amount of money for any two people to pay, even if they make millions of dollars on rookie contracts: $3.91 million for Bell and $2.96 million for Winstead. Samuel took to Twitter on Thursday to clear things up, however: The actual bill was only $2,500 which, while still expensive, is massively more manageable.
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Samuel responded to a tweet of the video, saying he "wouldn’t do our two rook wideouts like that" before adding it was "funny to see how scared they got." He did not say whether he picked up the bill or left it to the rookies to pick up.
Warning: explicit language used.
Lol was prank 😂😂 wouldn’t do our two rook wideouts like that funny to see how scared they got though.
— Deebo (@19problemz) August 12, 2023
Tab was only 2500 https://t.co/KD7tCdQDIS
This isn't the first time the 49ers have pranked rookies with high-priced bills. Social media was aghast last year after the team seemingly pushed a $322,329 bill on rookie defensive end Drake Jackson. That is, until, Arik Armstead revealed the prank:
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The 49ers made Rookie Drake Jackson pay the dinner bill totaling $322,391.05 😳 pic.twitter.com/P6VGS3dl3u
— AuxGod (@AuxGod_) December 19, 2022
Y’all silly if you thought a dinner can cost 300k . It was a prank. The waitress went overboard . The dinner was 7500 me and 2 other vets gave 1k towards it . The rooks split 4500. We had a great time too. I had good vets as a young player I would never do a rookie like that .
— Arik Armstead (@arikarmstead) December 20, 2022
So, there you have it: The 49ers have a bit of history not only scaring rookies with large bills that are actually quite manageable, but also tricking social media alongside them.