Free Agency Roundup
Free agency can be splashy, sexy, and exciting. This year, it was none of those things. But that’s a good thing. While free agency technically runs through most of the summer, we’re likely done with major moves until at least after the draft. Here are a few takeaways from how we’ve approached this critical off-season.
Stimulus Checks. The massive spike in the salary cap has led to some truly obscene contracts over the past two months as every desperate owner, GM, and coach has been spending like it’s the first two weeks of COVID lockdown and PS5’s just restocked. Want to pay a soon-to-be 30-year-old Calvin Ridley No.1 money despite having a draft pick high enough to take one of the top three guys in a historically loaded wideout class? Sure. Have a 5’8 quarterback who you essentially gave up CJ Stroud AND Caleb Williams for? Better pay $20M/yr over five years for an offensive guard. While it may not get the juices flowing, this off-season was the perfect one to NOT get into bidding wars.
Strength in Numbers. Our depth issues along the defensive line were apparent all season and pushed us to make TWO mid-season trades for edge players last season. With the money saved from releasing Armstead, we’ve already added two likely starters and four guys to our two-deep. While we’re still hoping that one or both of Drake Jackson and Robert Beal Jr. emerge into viable contributors next season, we’ve approached this off-season in a way that insulates us in case they don’t.
Two-Year Tryouts. With so much money committed to high-end talent, we know a cap crunch is coming next off-season. To prepare for that inevitability, we’ve been adding players mostly on one-year prove-it deals and two-year pacts structured in a way where guaranteed cash is paid upfront and the second year operates largely like a team option. If we like what we see, we can keep that player for the beginning of the next era. If the ROI doesn’t fit, we can let them walk without dominating our cap. That doesn’t mean there won’t be any dead cap (each of these deals comes with void years), but we’re preparing a year early for some big decisions next off-season.
Farewells
The most significant goodbyes (in number and impact) have come along the defensive line, where five players on our two deep have departed. One-year rentals Clelin Ferrell (Washington), Chase Young (New Orleans), and Randy Gregory (unsigned) have all moved to greener pastures while Javon Kinlaw latched on with the Jets after finally putting together a (mostly) healthy season that showed some promise. But the saddest and most meaningful departure was Arik Armstead, whose sticker price simply didn’t mesh with the amount of time he’s missed due to injury over the past two years. While he was still a Top 10 DT when healthy, he missed 13 games over the past two seasons due to an injury (Lisfranc) that will likely only get worse with time. I think we were all hoping the Niners and Armstead would find a middle ground on a pay cut and a contract restructure, but–according to Armstead–the Niners’ offer was to drop his salary to $8M/year (with incentives bringing it up to a paltry $10M). Unsurprisingly, that was too big a financial hit for “The Blueprint,” who signed for $14.5M/year over three years with the Jags shortly after being released. As the first-round pick of the graciously short-lived Jim Tomsula era, Armstead was the longest-tenured 49er on the roster and–as our nominee for the Walter Payton Man of the Year four years running–he will be missed in the community and the locker room as much as he’ll be missed on the field.
Elsewhere, Sam Darnold did well enough as a backup rental to score a bridge quarterback contract with the Vikings. He’ll at least have a chance at keeping the seat warm for whatever quarterback Minnesota inevitably drafts this April. Special teams ace and part-time starter Oren Burks went to Philadelphia for a sum of money small enough that it gives us some hope that at least one of last year’s rookie LBs has shown enough to warrant a bump in playing time. Ray-Ray McCloud and Charlie Woerner both latched on with the Falcons. Isaiah Oliver–who was cut as quickly as physically possible after the season ended–landed with the Jets. Reserves Sebastian Joseph-Day (Tennessee) and Matt Pryor (Chicago) have moved on as well.
Running It Back
We offered a second-round tender to Jauan Jennings, which he’s yet to sign but likely only because they’re still working on hammering out a more significant extension. Jon Feliciano returns for a potential swan song, a sneaky important move given he was probably our second-best offensive lineman last year. Kevin Givens was the one free agent defensive lineman we retained on a one-year pact–solidifying our two-deep on the interior. Finally, George Odum, Chris Conley, and Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles are all guys who can play offensive or defensive snaps in a pinch, but their extensions are mostly geared toward special teams.
Shoutouts to Kittle and Warner for restructuring their deals to clear up the cap space to make these moves (and the ones below) happen, and a special shoutout to Juice, who took a pay cut to try and keep as much of the core together for another run.
The New Guys
We have four new dudes along the defensive line–all with pretty clear roles within next year’s rotation. DE Leonard Floyd (Buffalo) immediately becomes the most accomplished pass rusher to line up opposite Nick Bosa. At first considered a bust after being drafted 9th overall by the Bears in 2016, Floyd found his footing and broke out with the Rams under then-DC Brandon Staley (who knew him from his time as an assistant in Chicago). Since that move, Floyd has tallied four straight years registering somewhere between 9-10.5 sacks and 19-22 QB hits. While 31 years old, he’s a model of consistency as an edge rusher and someone whom Brandon Staley is quite familiar with. While he’s probably not as freaky of an athlete as he was when he came out of college, Floyd will be able to punish single blocks and blow by slow pass sets at a rate that we haven’t seen opposite Bosa since the ten games before Dee Ford blew out his back.
DE Yetur Gross-Matos (Carolina) is our second addition on the edge, although he was likely brought in to play an inside-outside hybrid role similar to the one that Arden Key and Charles Omenihu have excelled at in the past. Gross-Matos hasn’t lived up to his lofty high-second-round draft slot in his four years in the pros, but he hasn’t been a total flameout either. Across 55 games and 32 starts, he’s registered 13 sacks and 30 QB hits. Nothing to write home about, but Gross-Matos’ size and physical profile were highly coveted for a reason and—as a long-limbed athletic guy who still needed to fill out his frame—he was largely miscast as a down lineman in the Panthers’ 3-4 fronts. Similar to someone like Danielle Hunter, Gross-Matos was always thought to be a guy who needed some time to bulk up and fill out, and we weren’t the only team to think a change of scenery could unlock some of that past potential because there was a bit of a bidding war to secure his services. The price (2yr/$18M) was higher than anticipated, but an aggressive one-gapping scheme like ours with a top-flight position coach seems like as good a situation as any to unlock Gross-Matos’ considerable potential.
On the interior, we traded a seventh-rounder for Maliek Collins, a sneaky productive starting DT for the Texans who should slot in smoothly to our system given it’s the same one he just played in. He had 5 sacks and 18 QB hits last year and should give us some pass-rush juice while Jordan Elliott (Cleveland) will be more of a run-stopper. Elliott presents some intrigue in that–like Gross-Matos–his physical profile is more impressive than his production. He’s started the past two seasons on a loaded Browns defensive line (even if he was the least memorable of those starters), and while it would be optimistic to think a guy with ten career QB hits will ever be a force against the pass, he’s still young. There’s hope that his best as a pro is yet to come, and—even if the sacks never come—we would be more than happy if he rounds out into a truly disruptive run defender.
LB De’Vondre Campbell (Green Bay) will fill in for Dre as he heals up and slot in as our SAM linebacker once Greenlaw returns. I was a bit more comfortable with Eric Kendricks–who committed to us before changing his mind and following his former head coach down to Dallas–if only because Kendricks was coming off a rebound season and has been the healthier of the two. Campbell was a first-team All-Pro as recently as two years ago but he’s been in and out of the lineup since, and when he has played, nagging injuries have affected his performance. To be fair, he hasn’t been bad when he’s played hurt, he just hasn’t been the same player we saw in 2021. This could be a major steal or a guy who is in-and-out of the lineup. It all comes down to which Campbell we’re getting and for how much of the year we’ll have him.
CB Isaac Yiadom (New Orleans) may be our most intriguing pickup. After not moving the needle much in his first five years in the league, things finally clicked for him last season. While he wasn’t a full-time starter until week 12, he finished the season as PFF’s 10th-best cornerback. The Saints wanted to keep him, but with both their starting corners entrenched (and healthy) for 2024, Yiadom moved on to bet on himself, and we secured his services for a paltry one-year deal worth up to $3M. Perhaps last season was a flash in the pan. Or perhaps Yiadom is simply a late bloomer who has finally put things together as he approaches his age 28 season. The potential return is sky-high. At the very least, he gives us cheap competition to start outside in our nickel sets—where he’ll have to fight off Ambry Thomas, Samuel Womack, and Darrell Luter Jr. for snaps.
Aerospace engineer and QB Josh Dobbs (Minnesota) replaces Darnold as Purdy’s backup. Hopefully, he won’t have to play except in blowouts, but “The Passtronaut” is already familiar with our scheme from his time with the Vikings so it should be a smooth transition. While Darnold’s arm talent is far superior, Dobbs is a smart guy and a good athlete and has shown he can play (and win) in a pinch—even if you don’t necessarily love the idea of him as your long-time starter.
Finally, CB Chase Lucas (Detroit), LB Ezekiel Turner (Arizona), and RB Patrick Taylor (Green Bay) were brought on as camp bodies with the chance to stick around as special teams aces and we replaced Pryor with OT Brandon Parker (Vegas), a practice squad reserve tackle candidate who I honestly know nothing about.
Moves To Come?
We’ll be jumping into the draft in the coming days/weeks, so we’ll talk more in-depth about our overall team needs during that time, but there are two positions that may be addressed with veterans at some point between now and the start of OTAs.
At safety, Tashaun Gipson hasn’t yet decided whether he wants to retire or go for one more chance at a Lombardi Trophy. If he doesn’t hang em up, a return to the Niners is highly likely. In case he doesn’t, we’ve been doing our homework in evaluating a few options from a safety market with a number of proven commodities and a floundering positional valuation. The Niners have already met with Julian Blackmon, who just re-signed with the Colts earlier this week, and former Jag, Rayshawn Jenkins. While there’s a chance we find mid-round value at safety in this draft class and trot out a rookie, there’s a good chance that we bolster the unit with a vet in the coming months.
The same could be said for tight end, where we put out an RFA offer for Brock Wright (Detroit) which was basically the exact same deal that Woerner just signed with Atlanta. The Lions just matched, so Wright won’t be coming to the Bay, but we’re clearly still in the market for a reliable second tight end who can spell Kittle. Maybe Cameron Latu–the 2023 third-round pick who missed the entirety of last season with a “medical” redshirt–fills that role but with a much higher ceiling. But given how we’ve been operating, it shouldn’t be assumed that’s the case.
Go Niners 🏈👍