Philly Front Office

We may hate the 49ers, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be impressed with what they’ve done this season. After years of pushing money down the line and taking advantage of a rookie scale QB contract, this past offseason SF decided to get their books right. They were facing a lot of tough decisions, made them, and were supposed to leave legitimate contention for next year. They just forgot about that last part.

Going into the offseason, they knew they had to pay Brock Purdy and pay him a lot. They ended up at 5/$265m (doesn’t kick in until next year but actual cash going out the door was $40m). George Kittle was up for an extension to. They gave him 4/$76m. Defensive monster Fred Warner signed for 3/$63m.

To fit these moves in, some veterans had to go. Dre Greenlaw, Charvarious Ward, Aaron Banks, and Javon Hargrave were free agents. Despite being part of the core we came to know and hate, they were gone. Then there was Deebo Samuel, forever unhappy with his contract status. He was traded to Washington. Interestingly, SF chose to take his full cap hit this season. Instead of $17m to keep him, they took on $34m in dead cap this year. Only a team that knew it wasn’t trying to compete would voluntarily choose to take that money on all at once, leaving next year unencumbered. In total they have $103m in dead cap this year.

Knowing all that, if I were to tell you that Joey Bosa would be limited to 3 games before tearing his ACL, Fred Warner would only play 6 games before breaking his ankle, Brock Purdy would miss 8 games, and Brandon Aiyuk would simply not play at all, you’d think they were toast right? It just hasn’t happened. 

Instead, the 49ers were fighting for the #1 seed and finished 12-5. They started the season with several 1 score wins against both good and terrible teams but just rolled from there. Kyle Shannahan might not be great at in-game adjustments, but he does know how to plan ahead. What this team has done with so much adversity and lesser talent should be commended. Now they come to the playoffs and face the rested Eagles on the road. We all hope that their record was just smoke and mirrors that gets exposed by Vic Fangio, but what they’ve done is impressive nonetheless.