49ers WR Ricky Pearsall to undergo season-ending knee surgery

San Francisco 49ers receiver Ricky Pearsall will have season-ending surgery on his injured right knee in the latest setback for the 2024 first-round pick.

General manager John Lynch announced the decision on Saturday for Pearsall to undergo surgery to repair his posterior cruciate ligament. Pearsall initially injured the knee last season and came back to play late in the season. But he was shut down after two practices in training camp because of swelling in the knee.

The Niners announced that former All-Pro Deebo Samuel had returned to the team on a one-year deal worth up to $7 million to take Pearsall's place on the roster. Samuel took part in practice on Saturday as he returned to the place where he played for his first six seasons in the NFL.

“I wouldn’t say it was different. It kind of felt like I didn’t even go nowhere to be honest,” he said. “When I got back, I was just like, ‘Well, I know what’s going on. I know the people here, staff still the same.’ It’s kind of like the same.”

Pearsall has flashed when he is healthy, but has struggled to stay on the field since being drafted with the 31st overall pick in 2024. He missed most of training camp as a rookie with a shoulder injury and then was shot in a robbery attempt just before the start of that season. Pearsall returned to make 31 catches for 400 yards and three TDs in 11 games.

Pearsall was slowed early last summer by a hamstring injury, but got off to a fast start to the season with 20 catches for 327 yards in his first four games before going down with a knee injury in Week 4.

He missed the next six games and had only five catches for 20 yards in his first three games back. Pearsall then had six catches for 96 yards the following game against Tennessee before reaggravating the knee injury. He missed two of the final three regular-season games and the playoff opener before being a nonfactor in a divisional round loss to Seattle.

Pearsall has 67 catches for 928 yards and three TDs in 20 games over two seasons. Pearsall's lack of playing time makes it unlikely the team would put up his fifth-year option for 2028 next spring.

The 49ers bolstered the receiver room by signing free agent Mike Evans in March and drafting De’Zhaun Stribling with the first pick of the second round in April. Now they are also bringing back Samuel after he spent last season in Washington. Stribling missed practice Saturday with hamstring tightness but has been impressive early in camp.

Samuel spent his first six seasons with the 49ers after being drafted in the second round in 2019, helping the team reach the Super Bowl twice and earning All-Pro honors in 2021 when he had 1,770 yards from scrimmage and 14 touchdowns.

Samuel was traded to Washington in 2025 for a fifth-round draft pick and had 72 catches for 727 yards and five TDs for the Commanders last season. He became a free agent in March and now will join the Niners to provide reinforcement with Pearsall out.

“I’ve hated him so long, and it’s so nice to have him back in a friendly atmosphere,” said defensive coordinator Raheem Morris, who went up against Samuel when he ran the Rams defense from 2021-23.

“He’s the ultimate piece that can move around and you have to game plan around because his ability to run the football, his ability line up at receiver, his ability take screens, his ability do a bunch of different things on special teams, whether it be return man or whatever the case may be.”

Samuel has 406 catches for 5,519 yards and 27 touchdowns in his career and has been one of the most dynamic players after the catch in the NFL. His average of 8.7 yards after the catch on receptions rank first among all receivers with at least 100 catches since 2019. He also has rushed for 1,218 yards and 21 TDs in 97 games.

Several other players were dealing with new injuries on Saturday for the Niners. Defensive lineman Cameron Sample (knee) and rookie DL Romello Height (elbow) didn't practice. DL Keion White (abductor) and DL Mikail Kamara (knee) got hurt in practice.

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/NFL

San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Deebo Samuel Sr. runs during the NFL football team's training camp, Saturday, Aug. 1, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Deebo Samuel Sr. runs during the NFL football team's training camp, Saturday, Aug. 1, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Deebo Samuel Sr. speaks at a news conference during the NFL football team's training camp, Saturday, Aug. 1, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

FILE - San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Deebo Samuel Sr. (1) runs for a first down during the first half of an NFL football game against the Miami Dolphins, Dec. 22, 2024, in Miami Gardens, Fla. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)

San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Ricky Pearsall (1) runs a drill against wide receivers coach Leonard Hankerson during the NFL football team's training camp Monday, July 27, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia launched an intense barrage of ballistic missiles and drones overnight into Saturday, killing at least nine people and wounding 33 civilians in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, authorities said.

The strikes follow a major Russian attack two days earlier that killed at least 10 people and wounded more than 50 others across Ukraine, as Moscow apparently looks to exploit Kyiv’s critical shortage of Western-supplied anti-ballistic missile defenses. The relentless cycle of attacks dims the potential of reaching a diplomatic end to Russia’s more than 4-year-old invasion of its neighbor.

A five-story residential building in the city's Solomianskyi District was damaged by falling debris and a fire broke out. Rescue workers evacuated 35 people from the upper floors of the building and two people died, with eight reported injured, including two children, according to Ukraine’s state emergency service.

In the Darnytskyi District of Kyiv, seven people were killed and another 14 injured after the attack caused fires and damage to houses, vehicles, an administrative and non-residential building, the emergency services said.

Elsewhere, emergency workers extinguished a fire in a non-residential building in the capital’s Shevchenkivskyi district. There was no additional information about earlier reports by the district mayor that people were trapped in another residential building.

Damage to commercial and residential buildings was reported in two other city districts.

Lithuania’s foreign minister said the country’s embassy in Kyiv was damaged when missiles struck nearby overnight.

Russia’s defense ministry said Saturday it had launched a “massive strike” against “Ukrainian military-industrial complex facilities and logistics centers in Kyiv.”

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pressed the United States and other Western partners over Ukraine’s need for more Patriot anti-ballistic missile defense systems to counter missile attacks from Russia.

“Every package of ballistic missile interceptors saves the lives of our people. And every night without them results in more casualties,” he wrote on X following the latest attacks.

The Ukrainian leader late Friday said he spoke to U.S. Vice President JD Vance and discussed a meeting with President Donald Trump earlier this week in Washington, which Zelenskyy described as “positive and productive.”

“The Russian air strikes on our country continue and air defense, specifically interceptors for Patriot systems against ballistic missiles, remains a top priority,” Zelenskyy said Friday in a post on Telegram.

At a NATO summit in Ankara in July, Trump said the U.S. would give Ukraine a license to make Patriot systems, but he appeared to move away from that commitment on Friday during a Cabinet meeting at the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland, saying he had not yet made a final decision on the matter.

From a basement shelter where she was taking cover as a second air alarm sounded for another wave, Liudmyla Nakonechna, 64, described how she was woken by loud explosions at 1:30 a.m.

“I ran into the corridor and was standing there when the bathroom door was blown off its hinges and struck me in the leg,” said Nakonechna, whose health is poor after undergoing cancer treatment. “I heard the sound of shattering glass. My balcony was covered in glass and it was completely blown apart, while the windows in my bedroom were also blown out.”

Nakonechna had not taken cover in a shelter since Russia’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, but the stress became too much, she said.

“It’s getting worse by the day,” Nakonechna said. “Whereas before there was an attack once every two weeks, or maybe once a week, now it happens practically every day. It is incredibly hard to bear this psychologically.”

— A Russian airstrike killed one person and wounded five more in the city of Kherson in southern Ukraine, local officials said Saturday.

— In Russian-occupied Crimea, the Moscow-appointed head of the city of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said Saturday that a 60-year-old woman was killed and two other people wounded in a drone attack on the city.

— Ukrainian drones struck three Russian oil refineries overnight in the Russian republic of Bashkortostan, Zelenskyy said Saturday. The refineries “process millions of tons of oil each year” and are located nearly 1,600 kilometers (994 miles) from Ukraine, Zelenskyy said on social media.

The Russian online news outlet Astra reported Saturday that a Ukrainian drone set an oil refinery in Ufa, the capital of Bashkortostan, ablaze. Local officials said debris from a downed drone caused “smoke” at an unnamed “industrial zone.”

Ukraine’s almost daily long-range drone and missile strikes using domestically developed weapons have battered Russian oil facilities for months. The operation has brought a fuel crisis that is embarrassing the Kremlin more than four years after Russia’s all-out invasion of its neighbor.

— A sanctioned Russian container ship, the Yanina, sank in the Black Sea after being hit by Ukrainian drones, Zelenskyy said Saturday, listing the ship as among “facilities that sustain the war effort.”

Russia’s state nuclear energy company, Rosatom, whose shipping subsidiary FESCO operates the vessel, said the ship was carrying “civilian goods” such as frozen food and construction materials.

Emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire following Russian missile attacks in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Aug. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire following Russian missile attacks in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Aug. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire following Russian missile attacks in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Aug. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Emergency services personnel work to extinguish a fire following Russian missile attacks in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Aug. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)