With the NFC Championship game just a few days away, I thought I’d take a look at Jimmy Garoppolo’s future, whether the 49ers season ends this Sunday, or if it ends in 2 weeks in the Super Bowl, and breakdown what options the 49ers have.
Now, Garoppolo is set to count $26.95 million against the 2022 salary cap, and it’s clear the 49ers can’t hold onto Garoppolo, while retaining their key free agents, along with extending the likes of Nick Bosa, & Deebo Samuel, unless they do some cap gymnastics.
Now, if the 49ers decided they wanted to keep Jimmy, they have a few options, first off, the 49ers have, with Garoppolo signed, just 32 players under contract for 2022, for a cap commitment of $201,158,720, plus $5,167,725 in dead money, for a total commitment of $206,326,445, which, under the projected $208.2 million cap, would leave the 49ers $1,873,555 under the cap, but that’s before they have 51 players signed, plus carryover, & adjustments factored in, so after factoring in my projected numbers, it puts the 49ers $8,293,302 over the 2022 cap, with 51 players signed.
Now, if the 49ers decide to move on from Garoppolo, they’d save $24.845 million, this is assuming a player making $705,000 takes his place, which would leave the team with $16,551,698 in projected cap room to begin the 2022 offseason.
Now, if the 49ers decided they wanted to hang onto Jimmy, they’d have a few options.
First off, the 49ers could restructure his deal, where they would either add on 4 voidable years, lower his base salary down from $24.2 million, to the league minimum of $1.12 million, saving the team $18.464 million, but when 2023 comes, that same amount of $18.464 million would become dead money, so this option isn’t likely, as in 2023, the 49ers have 17 players signed, with a projected $91,360,801 in cap room, but again, with only 17 players, so add in enough to bring them to 51 players, and they’d go down to $65,860,801 in cap room, so losing $18.464 million would be a huge loss, plus this doesn’t factor in any draft picks for 2022, re-signings, or extensions for players not signed for 2023.
With this move, the 49ers projected cap room to begin the 2022 offseason would be $10,170,698.
Next up is the idea of restructuring every contract that the 49ers can to get the cap room needed to be able to keep Garoppolo, which would be the likes of George Kittle($8.332 million saved), Arik Armstead($10.424 million saved), Jimmie Ward($6.224 million saved), which would save the team a total of $24.98 million, but the team would lose just $4.996 million in 2023 cap room, this does assume that Ward gets an extension, if not, they’d lose $8,730,400 in cap room, which isn’t bad, but again, the 49ers don’t have the likes of Nick Bosa, Deebo Samuel, Dre Greenlaw signed for 2023, nor does it factor in their 2022 draft picks, plus anyone re-signed.
If the 49ers decided to do this, their 2022 cap room to begin the offseason would be $16,686,698.
If you want to see what this could look like, check out my 2022 offseason plan, here, I also go over this at the bottom before the cap tables.
So, while it appears that the 49ers may retain Garoppolo, especially if their season ends with them hoisting their 6th Lombardi trophy, it just doesn’t seem likely, as the team would be forced to potentially sacrifice future salary cap room, and/or sacrifice re-signing some key free agents.
And, 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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