Yesterday I went over the 49ers 2022 salary cap situation after Laken Tomlinson’s contract voided, & Dee Ford’s $4.6 million roster bonus became fully guaranteed, so today I’m going to revisit the key days for both the NFL, & the 49ers when it comes to contracts, as well as addressing the rumors/suggestions of the 49ers trading for either Packers QB Aaron Rodgers, or Buccaneers QB Tom Brady.
February 22, 2022 – Teams may designate 1 player as their Franchise or Transition player.
March 1-March 7, 2022 – The 2022 NFL Scouting Combine takes place in Indianapolis, Indiana.
March 14-16, 2022 – Teams are permitted to contact, and enter into contract negotiations with certified agents of Unrestrcted Free Agents, upon the expiration of their 2021 player contracts at 4PM EST, New York time, on March 16, 2022.
March 16, 2022 – Prior to 4PM EST, New York time, teams must do the following, they must exercise contract options for players with option clauses in their 2021 contract for the 2022 season, they must submit qualifying contract offers/tenders to Restricted Free Agents, in order to retain the right of first refusal or compensation, clubs must submit a minimum salary tender to Exclusive Rights Free Agents, who have fewer than 3 accrued season towards free agency, and the top 51 rule becomes in effect, meaning all teams must be under the 2022 salary cap.
March 16, 2022 – At 4PM EST, New York time, all 2021 player contracts will expire at 4PM EST, New York time, and the 2022 new league year opens, which means teams can sign, trade, and designate players as Post June 1 cuts.
March 21, 2022 – The 49ers must decide whether to exercise Fred Warner’s $12.68 million option for his 2026 contract year, if declined, the $12.68 million gets added to his 2022 base salary, going from $2.564 million, to $15.244 million.
April 1, 2022 – The following players have either part or their base salary or all of it guaranteed for 2022, or 2023, plus players who have roster bonuses or option bonuses due.
- FB Kyle Juszczyk – $2.155 million option bonus due, prorates at $583,750 from 2022-2025, which is already factored into his 2022-2025 salary cap numbers.
- TE George Kittle – $4.917 million of his 2023 base salary becomes fully guaranteed, as $5.083 million of his 2022 base salary became fully guaranteed back on April 1, 2021, while the remaining $6.367 million was fully guaranteed at signing.
- C Alex Mack – $500,000 of his 2022 base salary becomes fully guaranteed.
- LT Trent Williams – $5.05 million of his 2023 base salary becomes fully guaranteed, as his 2022 base salary, $7.25 million, was already fully guaranteed at signing.
- DE Dee Ford – His $4.6 million roster bonus is due.
- DT Arik Armstead – $5.85 million of his 2022 base salary becomes fully guaranteed.
- MLB Fred Warner – $984,000 of his 2022 base salary becomes fully guaranteed, as the remaining $1.58 million was fully guaranteed at signing, and $12.016 million of his 2023 base salary becomes fully guaranteed.
- CB Emmanuel Moseley – His $4.4 million 2022 base salary becomes fully guaranteed.
April 18, 2022 – Teams with returning head coaches, like the 49ers, may begin their offseason workout program, while April 4, 2022 is when teams with new head coaches may start their offseason workout program.
April 22, 2022 – Deadline for Restricted Free Agents to sign offer sheets with other teams.
April 28-April 30, 2022 – The 2022 NFL Draft Takes Place in Las Vegas, Nevada.
May 2, 2022 – Teams must exercise or decline 5th-year options for 1st-round picks from the 2019 NFL draft, for the 49ers this is Nick Bosa, who will get the franchise tag number, which is projected by OverTheCap.com to be $20.186 million, which would be Bosa’s 2023 salary cap number, which also becomes fully guaranteed the moment the option is picked up.
July 28, 2022 – Nick Bosa’s $4,305,225 roster bonus is due on the 3rd day of training camp.
July 28, 2022 – Trey Lance’s $1,385,239 roster bonus is due on the 3rd day of training camp.
Ok, so many people, including reporters, & fans have suggested that the 49ers would or will trade for either Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, or Tampa Bay Buccaneers recently retired quarterback Tom Brady, so I’m going to go over why this isn’t something that will happen.
First off when it comes to Tom Brady, the Buccaneers cant’t trade him before June 2nd, as they would lose $11,729,412 in salary cap room, and teams can’t do Designated Post June 1 trades, so Brady won’t be able to sign with another team, unless the Buccaneers designate him a Post June 1 cut, which seems unlikely.
Now, with Aaron Rodgers, the 49ers would have to take on a $26,470,588 base salary, a $500,000 workout bonus, and Rodgers has $520,000 in LTBE incentives, for a cap number of $27,490,588, while trading Jimmy Garoppolo will only free up $25.55 million, which would be $1,940,588 short of Rodgers’ cap number.
Another reason as to why a Rodgers trade just doesn’t make sense is that the whole reason for the 49ers having a quarterback on a rookie contract is to be able to retain their own key free agents, & extend their core players, like Deebo Samuel, & Nick Bosa this offseason, & Brandon Aiyuk next offseason.
So, trading Garoppolo, and then trading for Rodgers defeats the purpose of what I said above, meaning they’d be guaranteed to lose many of their key free agents, and possible not be able to retain key core players on extensions.
Also by adding Rodgers, or Brady would stunt the development of Trey Lance, as he wouldn’t have played an entire football season since 2019, plus if the 49ers just had Rodgers or Brady for 2022, it would give the 49ers just 1 potential year of a full season for Trey Lance before they’d have to decide whether to exercise or decline his 5th-year option, which will be on May 2nd, 2024.
So, if the 49ers were to bring in either Rodgers or Brady, and at best Trey Lance sits 1 more season, the 49ers having to decide on Lance’s 5th-year option is a damned if you do, damned if you don’t, as the 49ers gave up their 2022 1st-rounder, 2022 3rd-rounder, & 2023 1st-rounder to get Lance, and either way if they exercise or decline it, they’re going to be criticized no matter what they do, as people will split 50/50, with the possibility of John Lynch and/or Kyle Shanahan being fired.
Now, let’s take a look at the 49ers current 2022 salary cap situation, where they have 43 players signed for 2022, with a total commitment of $208,528,720, along with $5,167,725 in dead money for a total of $213,696,445 in commitments, which leaves them $8,960,061 over the 2022 salary cap, this is with 51 players signed, and assuming those remaining 8 players are making $705,000, which is highly unlikely.
The 49ers have to 5 exclusive rights free agents, those being running back JaMycal Hasty, wide receiver Jauan Jennings, left guard Colton McKivitz, defensive tackle Kevin Givens, & strongside linebacker Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles, and 3 restricted free agents, those being right guard Daniel Brunskill, defensive tackle Kentavius Street, & strongside linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair.
The 49ers will tender all 5 of their ERFAs, with Jennings being $825,000, while Hasty, McKivitz, Givens, & Flannigan-Fowles would be $895,000 each, a total of $4.405 million, which would give them 48 players signed/tendered, and that puts them $9,840,061 over the 2022 salary cap.
As for their RFAs, it’s doubtful that they’d tender Brunskill, or Street, as it would take up, at minimum, $2.433 million for Brunskill, & $2.54 million for Street, a total of $4.973 million, which would then put the 49ers $13,403,061 over the 2022 salary cap, while the only RFA that they’d tender would be Al-Shaair, which they’d likely use the 2nd-round tender, which will come in at $3.986 million, putting the 49ers $16,684,061 over the 2022 salary cap.
Now, I don’t think the 49ers will have to tender any of them, as they’ll likely do what they did last offseason where they re-signed Jeff Wilson Jr., Ross Dwelley, & Marcell Harris to 1-year deals, worth much less than the lowest tender.
So, if their 1-year salaries come in at $1.265 million for Brunskill, & Street, and the 49ers re-sign Al-Shaair to a multi-year deal, like they did with Emmanuel Moseley last offseason, it could come in around $1.3 million, which would put the 49ers $11,555,061 over the 2022 salary cap.
As I mentioned yesterday, the 49ers must be cap compliant by the time the new league year begins on March 16, meaning they have to be under the salary cap, and that has to include having Garoppolo’s $26.95 million cap number on the books, even if they’ve agreed to a trade, so the 49ers, unless they get a crazy amount of adjustments/credits like they did this past season, they will have to do some cap maneuvering to get under the salary cap.
They have a few options, as I’ve mentioned before, they can restructure any of the following players, tight end George Kittle($8.332 million maximum, $7,811,250 minimum), left tackle Trent Williams($4.904 million minimum/maximum), defensive tackle Arik Armstead($10.424 million maximum, $9,772,500 minimum), & free safety Jimmie Ward($6.224 million maximum, $5.835 million minimum).
They could also go to defensive end Samson Ebukam about taking a pay cut, going from $5.9 million, down to $1.035 million, which would save the 49ers $4.865 million, so they would only have to restructure Arik Armstead, as the 49ers will save the most cap room from restructuring his contract, now if the 49ers did tender all 3 RFAs, they’d need to restructure 3 contracts, Armstead, Kittle, & Williams, saving a total of $23.66 million if they did it so they got the maximum savings, while the minimum savings would be $22,487,750.
So, if the 49ers can re-sign their 3 RFAs as I mentioned earlier, and restructured Armstead, & Williams’ deals, they’d be $3,772,939 under the cap, assuming they did the maximum savings, $3,121,439 under the cap with the minimum savings, and after trading Garoppolo, the team would have either $29,322,939 in cap room with maximum savings, or $28,671,439 in cap room with minimum savings.
Now, if they decided to redo just Armstead, & can get Ebukam to take the pay cut, they’d save $15.289 million with maximum savings, or $14,637,500 with minimum savings, the 49ers would have either $3,733,939 in cap room with the maximum savings, or $3,082,439 in cap room with minimum savings, and after trading Garoppolo, the 49ers would have either $29,283,939 in cap room with maximum savings, or $28,632,439 in cap room with minimum savings.
Now, if they did have to tender all 3 RFAs, they’d have to restructure Armstead, Kittle, & Williams’ contracts, which I said earlier would give them either $23.66 million with maximum savings, or $22,487,750 with minimum savings, which would then put the 49ers either $6,975,939 in cap room with maximum savings, or $5,803,430 in cap room with minimum savings, and after trading Garoppolo, the 49ers would have either $32,525,939 in cap room with maximum savings, or $31,353,430 in cap room with minimum savings.
The 49ers could restructure just Armstead, & Kittle, while getting Ebukam to take that pay cut, they’d save $23.621 million with maximum savings, or $22,448,750 with minimum savings, which would give the 49ers either $6,936,939 in cap room with maximum savings, or $5,764,639 in cap room in minimum savings, and after trading Garoppolo, the 49ers would have either $32,486,939 in cap room with maximum savings, or $31,314,639 in cap room with minimum savings.
Below would be the 49ers 2022 salary cap room with each scenario I mentioned above.
$29,322,939 after re-signing their 3 RFAs, and redoing Armstead, & Williams’ deals, with the maximum savings.
$28,671,439 after re-signing their 3 RFAs, and redoing Armstead, & Williams’ deals, with the minimum savings.
$29,283,939 after re-signing their 3 RFAs, redoing Armstead’s deal with maximum savings, & getting Ebukam to take the pay cut.
$28,632,439 after re-signing their 3 RFAs, redoing Armstead’s deal with minimum savings, & getting Ebukam to take the pay cut.
$32,525,939 after tendering their 3 RFAs, redoing Armstead, Kittle, & Williams’ deals, with maximum savings.
$31,353,430 after tendering their 3 RFAs, redoing Armstead, Kittle, & Williams’ deals, with minimum savings.
$32,486,939 after tendering their 3 RFAs, redoing Armstead, & Kittle’s deals with maximum savings, and getting Ebukam to take the pay cut.
$31,314,639 after tendering their 3 RFAs, redoing Armstead, & Kittle’s deals with minimum savings, and getting Ebukam to take the pay cut.
So, if the 49ers decided to bring in Aaron Rodgers, with his $27,490,588 cap number, the 49ers wouldn’t have much cap room at all, somewhere between $1,832,351 to $1,793,351 with the team re-signing their 3 RFAs, or somewhere between $5,035,351 to $4,996,351 with them tendering their 3 RFAs, which isn’t enough to re-sign any of their key free agents, plus sign their draft class, and they would need money for in season roster moves, with the only players that they could gain money from being Jimmie Ward, Arik Armstead, Trent Williams, George Kittle, or Samson Ebukam depending on whether they have their deals redone.
As you can see, they would have to redo 2 deals, at the minimum, unless they get a ton of adjustments/credits, that’s if they can re-sign their 3 RFAs, or they’d have to redo 3 deals, at the minimum, that’s if they have to tender their 3 RFAs, so they just wouldn’t have anyone to go to, & restructure, to save money for in season roster moves.
Yes, the 49ers can release Dee Ford after June 1, and save $2.4 million, before factoring in the top 51 rule, or $1.505 million when factoring in the top 51 rule, but that’s not enough to sign their draft picks, and/or have money for in season roster moves, plus they’d have to decide if they want to extend Deebo Samuel, and/or Nick Bosa, or even if they can, since those extensions should take up at the minimum around $1,723,775, which is $218,775 more than the $1.505 million they’d save from releasing Dee Ford.
Also, there’s no indications that either Rodgers or Brady would take a pay cut, as they’d likely want to be paid at least $25 million a year, and quite frankly, the 49ers can’t afford that, as they’d have to restructure contracts, let key free agents leave, and basically be in the situation that the New Orleans Saints, & Green Bay Packers are in, with them being way over the 2022 salary cap, and even with the expected rise in the salary cap, they’d still risk being back in cap hell.
So, as you see, if the 49ers were to trade for Rodgers, or Brady, they wouldn’t have really any salary cap room to re-sign any of their key free agents, like running back Jeff Wilson Jr., left guard Laken Tomlinson, defensive ends Arden Key, & Jordan Willis, nose tackle D.J. Jones, cornerback K’Waun Williams, & strong safety Jaquiski Tartt, nor would they be able to go into free agency to sign players to replace departing players.
So, my question to 49ers fans would be, “Is bringing in Rodgers or Brady worth risking losing key free agents, key young core players set to be extended, & not be able to sign any outside free agents, just to have Rodgers or Brady on the team for whatever length of years it’d be, plus stunting Trey Lance’s development, and potentially screwing up their salary cap in the future?”
My answer, as a 49ers fan is simple, NO, it’s not worth it, the 49ers can’t afford to lose key free agents, or not be able to sign any outside free agents, extend key young core players, and screw up their salary cap in the future.
And, with all of this said, I thank everyone for reading this 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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