There has been a lot of 49ers fans who want to see the team trade for Falcons WR Julio Jones, only because they saw that the Falcons have received calls, but have not even said he’s on the trade block, the only reason for the speculation is due to the Falcons being in cap trouble for 2021. But I will tell you why there’s no chance we trade for Julio, and why people need to get that out of their heads, it doesn’t work financially, and I’ll explain.
2021 wise, say you do trade for Julio, he counts $15.3M, we’re projected to have, IMO, around $8M-$10M in cap room before we give Warner his much deserved extension, and after the practice squad, so right there we’re in the negative. So ok, then we trade Jimmy, which would be dumb, but say we do, well they save $25M, but take away $15.3M, and it’s only a savings of $9.7M.
2022 wise, the team will be, with their current players under contract for 2022, minus Richburg, $1,801,822 over the 2022 projected cap of $203M, it won’t be higher than $205M, with the uncertainty of COVID, and it’s impact on the revenue, the cap won’t jump until 2023, or more likely the explosion in 2024. When you release/trade JG in 2022, you save $25.6M, well actually $24.895M when factoring in the top 51 rule, that would leave the team just $23,083,178 under the cap, add in a projected $5.5M cap number for Warner on an extension, that brings them down to $17,593,178, then if you do trade for Julio, his 2022 cap number would be $11.513M, leaving the 49ers with just $6,080,178 in cap room for the OFFSEASON(not real cap room for when the season begins), and the team will want to bring back some of their key FAs, Mostert, Wilson, Dwelley, Brunskill, Jones, Verrett, K’Waun, Moore, maybe Harris, Key, Hurst, Givens, Al-Shaair, they can’t sign all or most of them with just $6M in cap room.
Well ok, what about carryover, well the team, if they did trade JG away, plus get Julio, their projected $8M-$10M(pre Warner extension, which should be at least $3M in cap room) goes to max of $17.7M to $19.7M, but as we saw last season the cap room can evaporate quickly, plus take away at least $3M for Warner, you can’t let him go into 2021 without a new deal, as the LB tender will be over $17M in 2022, so they’re at between $14.7M to $16.7M, add in weekly promotions for practice squad players, as they get a prorated portion of their minimum base salary, so a guy who would make $1.075M if he wasn’t on the PS, would get $14K a week for 16 games, and then $59,722 for that game, those add up as the season goes on.
Let’s conservatively say the 49ers end up with half of that $14.7M-$16.7M, it would be much lower to be honest, so that’s either $7.35M or $8.35M, so then their cap room for 2022 would go from the $6,080,178 to between $13,430,178 to $14,430,178, that won’t be enough to re-sign players, or add players to fill the voids left by guys leaving. Plus you then have to factor in the teams 2022 draft class, they’re not gonna just trade JG, trade for Julio, then let all of their FAs go in 2022, add none in FA, and just draft 7 rookies, that would look like the team is rebuilding. And again, that $13.43M to $14.43M is TOP 51 CAP ROOM, not in season cap room. Like how the 49ers have $17M right now, then they’ll have around $12M when Lance, Sermon & Thomas sign their rookie deals, but again TOP 51 CAP ROOM, in season wise, like I said, between $8M-$10M, but that’s with the PS, and without a new deal for Warner.
So to conclude, it makes absolutely zero sense to trade JG and/or trade for Julio, he’s 32, injured a lot lately, isn’t the player he once was, likely won’t take a pay cut in 2022, since he’s only making $11.513M, not like he’ll go down to the minimum without any up front GTD money that starts counting in 2022. If this doesn’t get it through everyone who thinks we can or wants to trade for Julio, that it’s not feasible, then idk what will.
You have to also factor in the draft pick compensation that will be required to make such a trade happen, the Falcons won’t be looking to give Julio Jones up for nothing, they’ll want a 1st-round pick or multiple day 2 picks, well as we know the 49ers don’t have a 1st-round pick until 2024, and no way will nor should they deal their 2024 1st for a 32-year old injury prone WR. As for day 2 picks, they have 3 over the next 2 drafts, a 2022 2nd rounder & 2022 3rd rounder, 2023 2nd-rounder, 2023 3rd-rounder, and a 2023 compensatory 3rd-rounder for losing Martin Mayhew to the Washington Football Team. So giving up any of these picks would be terribly stupid, if the team were to just let players walk to justify trading for Jones, they’d have to fill those holes somehow, well, the only other place is in the draft, but now you traded 2 or more day 2 picks, you can’t rely/hope on hitting on late round gems each year.
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