San Francisco 49ers: An Early Look at Locks for the 2016 Roster
Chip Kelly’s reign can’t start entirely from scratch. Which current 49ers are locks for the 2016 roster?
Chip Kelly comes to the San Francisco 49ers with mostly a blank canvas to work with. He brings with him an entirely new offensive philosophy, likely a new defensive coordinator and an entirely different organizational philosophy from the Jim Tomsula era. Add in the third-most cap space in the league, per Over the Cap, the seventh-overall pick in the draft and plenty of draft picks to go around, and we can expect the 2016 49ers to look entirely different than their predecessors, right?
Well, not quite. While Kelly and the 49ers have a lot of room and power to make changes to the roster this season, it’s not like the entire 53-man roster is open for turnover. First and foremost, there is actually talent currently on the roster, and you wouldn’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, even if you are attempt to reshape the team in Kelly’s image.
Secondly, even if Kelly and Trent Baalke were to determine, for some reason, that every player on the roster was not a good fit for the 49ers moving forward, there are salary cap and roster-building concerns that would keep them from starting with a fresh slate. In short, decisions made in the Jim Harbaugh and Jim Tomsula eras–and even some made back when Mike Singletary and Mike Nolan controlled the franchise–will impact Chip Kelly’s initial roster, whether he likes it or not.
With that in mind, let’s try to project the locks for the eventual 53-man roster; or at least, as close to locks as we can predict in January. There are a few ground rules before we start, however:
- We’re solely looking at on-field issues when calling someone a lock or not; events off the field could have significant impacts. For example, at this point last season, we would have called Patrick Willis and Aldon Smith locks to make the 2015 roster. However, Willis surprisingly retired and Smith got in more trouble with the law, leading to neither of them playing for the 49ers this past season. If Carlos Hyde decides to open a crochet emporium and retire from the NFL, or Vance McDonald is revealed to be part of an international diamond thieving guild, they won’t be on the team regardless of their other credentials.
- Players must actually be under contract for 2016 in order to be considered locks. While the 49ers are likely to attempt to re-sign Ian Williams and Alex Boone, their future is not fully in the team’s control. Most free agent signings get large enough contracts to make them locks, but we’re not projecting free agent moves at this point.
- Just because a player is not projected as a lock does not mean they won’t make the final 53-man roster, or even that they are unlikely to. For example, Blaine Gabbert isn’t listed—his performance in 2015 wasn’t good enough that he’s an obvious player on a contending team going forward, nor is his contract unwieldy enough that the team couldn’t cut him if they wanted to. However, considering Chip Kelly made a point of mentioning him several times in his introductory press conference, it seems likely that he’s in at least the rough plans at the moment. That doesn’t necessarily mean that, if the 49ers draft a first-round passer and sign a veteran backup, that Gabbert can’t still be cut, just that he seems like a solid bet to be on the 53-man roster next season.
I sort locks into four categories, from least to most subjective:
- Recent high draft picks.
- Players with contracts that would be difficult or expensive to cut.
- Players who played well in 2015.
- Players who did not play well in 2015, but have had past success and an excuse for last season.
You can see how they go from obvious to subjective—a player is either a first-round pick or not, but whether a player has a logical excuse for poor play last season is very much in the eye of the beholder.
With all the preamble out of the way, let’s look at which players actually fall in which categories.
Next: Recent High Draft Picks