Today I decided to take a look at what the 49ers salary cap situation looks like after the injuries to Justin Skule, & Tarvarius Moore.
The 49ers waived-injured Skule, he went unclaimed, so he reverted back to the 49ers, where he is now on the teams injured reserve.
As of now, the 49ers have $17,503,587 in cap room, but that doesn’t include contracts for their remaining unsigned draft picks, Trey Lance, Trey Sermon, & Ambry Thomas.
The expected cap numbers for those 3 players are below.
Trey Lance – $6,200,973
Trey Sermon – $885,988
Ambry Thomas – $870,154
That’s a total of $7,957,115, but with the top 51 rule in effect, you need to subtract 3 players making $850,000, so it’s actually $5,407,115.
Now, when we take the $17,503,587, and subtract $5,407,115, we get $12,096,472 in cap room.
But now let’s look at what the 49ers will have when the season starts.
The 49ers have 4 players who will likely begin the 2021 season on one of the injured lists, so when we look at the 53-man roster, we have to take away 2 players making $660,000, which would be $1.32 million at the minimum, leaving them with $10,776,472 in cap room.
We also have to include the teams practice squad, teams will likely have a practice squad size of 16, just like in 2020, as it’s been reported that the NFL, & NFLPA are negotiating what rules to use for 2021, we could get into that with the short term IR being permanent, along with unlimited number of players you can bring back, but let’s stay with the practice squad.
If the team decides to keep the maximum of 6 players with 3 or more accrued seasons, along with 10 players with 2 or less accrued seasons, that’s a total of $3.168 million, the 49ers will have a 17th practice squader if they choose to keep Alfredo Gutierrez, but he doesn’t count against the cap.
So when we take that $3.168 million number away from the $10,776,472, we get $7,608,472 in cap room, which would be for the beginning of the 2021 season, but we also have to extend All-Pro MLB Fred Warner, which should take up at least $3 million in cap room, lowering the cap room down to $4,608,472, but of course this won’t be the final number, as we don’t know how the 53-man roster will look like.
Also the fact that players on the bubble who have guaranteed money, or prorated bonuses left, like Nate Sudfeld, Mohamed Sanu Sr., Charlie Woerner, & Kentavius Street, plus the teams 4 UDFAs, Austin Watkins Jr., Josh Pederson, Justin Hilliard, & Elijah Sullivan, so they’ll lose cap room if those players don’t make the 53-man roster.
For the sake of argument, let’s say the 49ers don’t keep any of the 4 UDFAs, well their dead money for 2021 would be $88,333 for Watkins, $22,666 for Pederson, & $105,000 for Hilliard & Sullivan each, that’s $320,999 in cap room the team will lose, putting them at $7,287,473 before a Warner extension, or $4,287,473 after a Warner extension, assuming the cap room used is indeed $3 million.
This is one of the two main reasons why trading for Julio Jones wasn’t feasible, as the 49ers need to keep their cap health, long term, in a good place.
For players like Sudfeld, Sanu, Woerner, & Street, they’d leave behind $252,000 for Sudfeld, $25,000 for Sanu, $45,258 for Woerner, & $152,550 for Street, that’s a total of $474,808 for those 4 players, which brings the 49ers cap room down to $6,812,665 before a Warner extension, and $3,812,665 after a Warner extension.
The 49ers might be able to save some room by keeping a younger player who makes more money, like JaMycal Hasty instead of Wayne Gallman Jr., but it’s minimal, just $70,000.
There’s always the possibility that the team cuts a player who they thought would make the team, by giving them guaranteed money, but they end up not showing that they deserve a roster spot.
A few names that comes to mind are Trent Sherfield($200,000 guaranteed), Arden Key($100,000 guaranteed, plus a $25,000 signing bonus), Maurice Hurst Jr.($100,000 guaranteed, plus a $25,000 signing bonus), and Marcell Harris($250,000 guaranteed, plus a $100,000 signing bonus).
They would end up saving the following for these 4 players.
Trent Sherfield – $720,000
Arden Key – $1,020,000
Maurice Hurst Jr. – $820,000
Marcell Harris – $844,118
So if all 4 were to be released, the 49ers would save $3,404,118, which brings their cap room up to $10,216,783 pre Warner extension, $7,216,783 post Warner extension.
But I don’t see the 49ers releasing any of those 4 players, I truly believe Sherfield could thrive in San Francisco under Kyle Shanahan, plus he’s a great special teams player.
Key & Hurst’s best has yet to come, and I believe DL Coach Kris Kocurek can bring the best out of them.
As for Harris, with the fact that he plays that S/LB hybrid role, also the fact the 49ers are down a safety, despite the fact Harris doesn’t play free safety, he’ll probably end up making the final 53.
So we’re back to the $6,812,665 or $3,812,665 number, with the latter being the most likely number, because the 49ers won’t let Fred Warner enter 2021 without a long term extension.
The 49ers have some options on how to create salary cap room, with 4 players that high enough base salaries that would help create cap room.
Those 4 are Jimmy Garoppolo, Laken Tomlinson, Arik Armstead, & Jimmie Ward.
The 49ers can save a maximum of $18.42 million from Garoppolo, a maximum of $2.808 million from Tomlinson, a maximum of $4.528 million from Armstead, & a maximum of $5.86 million from Ward.
Now, the most likely candidates to have their deals redone are Armstead, & Tomlinson, which would save the team $7.336 million, which would give the team $11,148,665 in cap room after a Warner extension, of course the number isn’t going to be that exact number, as anything can happen, injuries, players being cut that we didn’t expect to be cut, players sneaking onto the roster, etc…
I’ll go into detail tomorrow about the ripple effect of restructuring any of these players contracts.
Anyway, there you have it, what the 49ers will have in cap room after all of these injuries.
So with all of this said, I thank everyone for reading article, as always you can follow me on Twitter @49erscap, or leave a comment below, and I’ll get back to you.
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