LAS VEGAS — Shortly after time runs out on the 2024 Super Bowl and the last bit of confetti falls, the topic of free agency will heat up among NFL fans everywhere.
Part of that discussion will be about the team’s salary cap space and whether it can afford to add big-money players.
Every year we hear about how the salary cap affects team building, but there are ways to manipulate that cap.
Well, the 49ers have proven they can figure out the cap for at least a few years.
The 49ers have a whopping six players signed to contracts that rank in the top five in terms of average annual salary at their positions.
Expanding this to the top 10, there are eight players.
They have the four highest-paid players at their position from an overall contract standpoint, with two others in second place.
In a league with a salary cap, you wouldn’t be able to acquire that many highly paid stars, but the 49ers have done just that.
General manager John Lynch and executive vice president of football operations Parag Malate were able to find a way to bring together a talented roster and get deals done.
“The 49ers have had a great front office for a long time,” said Jason Fitzgerald, who runs Over the Cap, a website that analyzes salary cap information. “They are very good at planning ahead. That’s where I am.”
There are several explanations for how the 49ers were able to do it while other teams struggled.
The first reason is that they don’t pay quarterbacks a lot of money.
Brock Purdy was famously drafted in the seventh round, and his contract reflects that.
His cap fee in 2023 was $889,000.
Next year, it will rise to $1 million.
The second thing the 49ers often do is restructure contracts to defer cap charges into the future.
Because signing bonuses are allowed to be prorated over the course of a contract, teams often convert a large portion of a player’s salary into a signing bonus that lowers his cap charge for that season.
This is often referred to as a “credit card” within the NFL, and like a credit card, the charge with the cap fee will be paid years later, but you’re putting it off.
The 49ers put a twist on it this year.
They restructured the contracts of Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle, Fred Warner and Trent Williams at the beginning of the season, giving them approximately $36 million in cap space.
The idea was to help the 2024 cap situation rather than use that space for the 2023 season.
Unused cap space can be carried over to next year, and even with all that space, the 49ers are still projected to be $3 million over next year’s cap and will need to undergo further restructuring to get under the cap. there is.
Lynch explained the move earlier in the season.
“The truth is, we always look at the cap three years out,” he said. “Obviously, we have that much space this year. But really, to roll everything over so we have room for future years. It’s helpful.”
The reality, of course, is that the 49ers can’t live like this forever.
They will have a hard time adding a big contract in 2024, and Purdy is eligible for a contract extension in 2025.
Their deals will suddenly become budget-busting.
A team that currently has weapons like Kittle, Deebo Samuel, and Brandon Aiyuk won’t be able to keep them all and will have to make some difficult decisions.
“I think the teams that are studying this think this year is the peak for the 49ers overall,” Fitzgerald said. The question will be which players will stay and which players will have to be let go. ”
If the 49ers win on Sunday, they’ll have no problem starting a roster rebuild in 2025.
