Friday, February 26, 2021

Talking hats (of the salary cap kind) – can the 49ers build a 2021 Super Bowl roster?

 

By Scooter_McG

Based on projections of a cap of around $182M-$183M for 2021, the 49ers currently sit with around $13M-$14M in cap space. With 60+ players under contract, relative to a lot of teams this looks pretty good. However, the 49ers cap space comes with a price – a lot of 2019 and 2020 starters and key role players are off contract, including the likes of Richard Sherman, K’Wuan Williams, Jason Verrett, Emmanuel Moseley, Ahkello Witherspoon, Jaquiski Tartt, Marcell Harris, Solomon Thomas, Kerry Hyder, DJ Jones, Ronald Blair, Trent Williams, Daniel Brunskill, Ben Garland, Kyle Juszczyk, Kendrick Bourne and the two backup QBs – Mullens and Beathard. It’s a laundry list of players that have logged big minutes over the past two seasons, with some of these guys being key parts of the 2019 roster that went to the Super Bowl. Add in that teams usually need around $10M for rookies, that leaves around $3M-$4M in space for FAs.

No matter what the 49ers do, some of these players won’t be back. Sherman has been very open about it taking a miracle for him to be back. Trent Williams has been very philosophical about his first opportunity to test his value in free agency. While Kyle Juszczyk was very emotional in his end of season presser, acknowledging that his time with the 49ers may be coming to an end. Other players are all but certain to return, such as Moseley who is a RFA and Brunskill who is an ERFA.

So what can the 49ers do to free up cap space and help retain some of the key players, or replace guys they lose? The Ford contract situation has been discussed in this forum a fair bit already. His injury guarantee has thrown a bit of a wrench into things, making it far more complex regarding his release and realising cap savings. However, by converting his injury guarantee to signing bonus and designating him a post June 1 cut, the 49ers can save somewhere between $9M and $11M against the cap in 2021 (though some of the saving – his unguaranteed salary that shouldn’t be converted to bonus of I believe around $3M – wouldn’t come off the books until June 1).

Weston Richburg is all but guaranteed of being released. Unlike Ford he does not have any injury guarantee this year and cutting him would save $4.5M against the cap in 2021. If released as a post June 1 cut, it would be approximately $8M in cap savings in 2021.

But after that, there are fairly limited avenues available to the 49ers to generate sizeable cap relief. The only players that have significant salaries or roster bonuses that could be converted to signing bonus are JG, Jimmie Ward and Laken Tomlinson. You could potentially add Armstead, but with a massive spike in his cap hit already on the horizon from next year, that would seem a last resort.

Tomlinson is an interesting case, in that technically he has a contract until 2024, but his contract will void after this season and the extra years were added in his restructure last offseason for accounting purposes to spread the bonus out over five years and help free up much needed cap space for the 2020 season. The 49ers could take a similar tactic this offseason, and convert the bulk of his $4.5M salary to bonus and spread it out over four years. If $3.6M was converted to bonus (as a veteran his minimum salary would need to be ~$900K), this would provide $2.7M in cap relief. Alternatively they could offer him an actual extension (as opposed to voidable years), however, Tomlinson would be well within his rights to ask for a raise for any extension to his deal which may make things far trickier and result in no substantial cap savings.

The above moves could free up as much as around $20M in cap space for 2021.

The 49ers can take a similar approach to both JG and Ward. JG is due $24.1M in salary and Ward due $8.4M. Converting some or all of that to signing bonus and extending it over multiple years (through voidable years) could deliver substantial cap relief. For example, converting $20M of JG’s contract to signing bonus and adding two voidable years would result in a cap saving of $15M. For Ward, converting $7.5M to bonus and adding voidable years to spread the bonus over four years could save around $5.625M.

With the above moves, the 49ers could be in the vicinity of $55M under the 2021 salary cap, which would be plenty of space to sign rookies, re-sign key players, extend a guy like Fred Warner, and add replacements through FA to make a run at the Super Bowl in 2021. To be honest, they probably don’t need to rework all of those contracts to the extent outlined to be able to do this if the cap hits of the players they sign are also pushed out to future years.

Of course, what this would mean for future years is a different story, and one for another time.

15 comments:

  1. That's a lot of dirty laundry, and who knew, Trent Williams could be philosophical? Good stuff, Scooter. Not sure they'd be willing to raise, Tomlinson's salary. I'd guess he's close to about as much as, Shanny is willing to pay for his LG. I agree, Ward and Tomlinson are the two likeliest targets for cap savings.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks razor. Sure is a lot of guys off contract. But if they really want to go for it in 2021 they can make the moves to do so. Will they? TBD.

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    2. Everyone's waiting for the big ball to drop, and that's a, Jimmy G restructure.

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  2. Sometimes I disagree with you guys, that doesn't mean I don't appreciate the effort put forth like in this article and others thus far are really good. My Goodness Scooter...

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  3. Scooter,
    This is a great breakdown for even an old man like me to understand.
    A couple of questions, is Garoppolo projected to be the day one starter in your scenario?
    And if the 49ers decide to let him go, are we still in the SB conversation?

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    Replies
    1. Thanks AES. This scenario was based around the idea that JG is retained as the starter.

      If they don't keep him then the cap savings would be greater than they realise by restructuring, but it will be difficult to find a better starter in 2021. No rookie QB has ever won a SB, and the cost of acquiring a better QB will be very high. So I think JG probably gives them their best realistic chance of being a SB contender in 2021 unless something strange happens (like Watson demands a move to the 49ers and they get him relatively cheap, or one of the rookies steps in and is amazing from day 1).

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  4. Good stuff Scooter.
    It seems like some of what you proposed is similar to what Dave Lombardi proposed. The restructuring of Tomlinson makes since, he's a youngish, solid starter that knows the system. Additionally, in your scenario, he's not getting a huge raise which makes sense as well.

    If I am SF, there is no way I don't try to restructure Jimmy's deal and add years onto his contract. I don't want to trade him for nothing, and I am unlikely to upgrade from him within the next 2 years. I think adding 2 years to his deal and giving him a signing bonus to get his cap number closer to 20 million not only helps SF in the short term but makes him more tradeable. On his end it gives him more security both with the organization and financially.

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    Replies
    1. It would really surprise me if they redid, Jimmy's deal. Seems like they've been really hesitant to do so.

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    2. Thanks Shoup.

      I'm with razor, I don't think they will want to redo JG's contract to extend him. Doing so will require adding more guarantees and giving him more money. My belief is very much that they still want him to prove he is worth it before they agree to extending him.

      What I outlined isn't an extension. Just a simple transfer of salary to signing bonus, and getting JG to agree to adding voidable years so the cap hit is spread out longer. It literally has no impact on JG and his contract with the 49ers other than to give him the bulk of what he will be owed this year up front. They'd still have him under contract for 2022.

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  5. Very nice article, Scooter. Thanks.

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  6. Very well laid out Scooter McG. I've been saying I believed they could sign the players they really want to but you've gone one step further by giving examples. It's all going to come down to the confidence they and every team in the league for that matter have in the cap rebounding sooner than later. With the new TV deals and fans being allowed back in the stands (if that happens) there could be an unprecedented jump in cap space within the next two years and I could see teams using the strategies you've outlined based on that belief.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Notanexpert. The avenues are there to free up cap space and make a run at it this year. There are some lower cost guys I didn't mention that will also likely be released to free up some space. And I don't think it would completely cruel them in future years, so long as the cap does increase substantially from 2022 (I plan to do a piece on this at some point).

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