NFL free agency: 49ers in a unique, beneficial position heading into 2018
By Peter Panacy
The San Francisco 49ers are on the upswing heading into 2018 NFL free agency. And with a ton of cap space available, the Niners find themselves in a unique position this offseason and one they can take advantage of.
No team is going to be armed with as much salary cap space as the San Francisco 49ers heading into NFL free agency this offseason.
Per Over the Cap, the Niners are going to be armed with roughly $115 million in available cap space. And even with quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo likely to command between $23 million and $27 million of that in 2018, general manager John Lynch will still have plenty left over.
We know this, of course, as it hasn’t been hard to listen/read pundits discuss San Francisco’s current financial situation.
San Francisco 49ers
And it’s both a unique and beneficial one.
Finishing 2017 with a five-game winning streak, including hanging 44 points on the Jacksonville Jaguars and their top-ranked defense, suggests one thing — the 49ers are trending in the right direction and could be one of the league’s “Cinderella stories” this year.
Money talks (and the Niners have plenty of that) but so does winning.
Here’s the point. The No. 2 team on OTC’s list of squads with the most cap space is the Cleveland Browns ($110.7 million). Coming off a winless 2017, though, the Browns aren’t likely to be a preferred destination for players in NFL free agency.
Bad Teams Tend to Have Lots of Cap Space
This isn’t some crazy, deep theory here. But bad teams don’t often wind up pressing the top end of the salary cap. Some do, but only if they’ve managed their cap situations terribly.
Most NFL general managers are smart and try to avoid this. Which is why bad teams don’t re-sign or extend players who… well, stink. So those teams rarely are forced to face those expensive contract extensions taking place after a cheap rookie deal.
Hence why the 49ers and Browns — nine combined wins the last two seasons — are at the top of the cap-space heap.
In an odd way, the Niners can thank former general manager Trent Baalke and the failures of head coaches Jim Tomsula and Chip Kelly the last two seasons for this. Baalke’s player-selection gaffes, paired with his general avoidance of using NFL free agency as a means to improve the roster, laid the grounds for San Francisco to have so much available space.
Even if that wasn’t his intention.
Why the 49ers’ Situation in NFL Free Agency Is Unique
If the 2017 Niners finished with two or three wins this season, they probably wouldn’t be much of a free-agent destination. Some, yes. But it would have hurt their chances.
Yet if the 49ers didn’t completely overhaul the roster last year, they’d likely be in a slightly worse cap situation. Remember, San Francisco blew out the rest of the league in rookie snap counts last season — 2,874 rookie snaps, per Pro Football Focus. And with first-year gems like tight end George Kittle, wide receiver Trent Taylor and linebacker Reuben Foster playing on rookie contracts for a while, the 49ers aren’t going to have to worry about salary cap hell anytime soon.
Which means they won’t be on Jason Fitzgerald of OTC’s list of teams with the worst cap situations heading into 2018.
This is why general manager John Lynch can be aggressive on the open market. Niners Wire’s Chris Biderman explained how other teams did it right:
"The salary cap next season is expected to grow from $167 to $178 million. It’s another massive $11-million jump.Which all points to why the 49ers should dive into the deep end when it comes to pursuing the free agents. The obvious caveat: Find the right players that fit the system. That’s what Jacksonville did last spring and what the Broncos did when their massive 2014 free agent class (Aqib Talib, DeMarcus Ware, Emmanuel Sanders and T.J. Ward) carried a limp Peyton Manning to the Super Bowl title two years ago."
Timing Is Perfect for the 49ers
A year ago, Lynch made moves to upgrade the 49ers’ “middle class,” as NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport put it, via KNBR 680.
There weren’t too many “splashy moves” a year ago at this time. A few, but not much.
All that can change this year. Armed with a very young roster, whose contracts will roughly expire in the next three or four years, the Niners can now make those splashy NFL free agency signings. Those lucrative three- or four-year deals good teams, pressed up against the salary cap, tend to avoid are the ones San Francisco can easily afford.
Without endangering their future cap situation beyond, let’s say, 2020. And we didn’t even mention the Niners are still armed with a top-10 pick in the 2018 NFL Draft — the first of nine selections.
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Putting it simply, this is the 49ers’ situation:
- A young, cheap roster that received lots of NFL on-field experience last year.
- Finishing with a five-game winning streak, including wins over three playoff teams.
- A franchise-type quarterback in Garoppolo.
- An offensive innovator in head coach Kyle Shanahan.
- The most cap space to attack NFL free agency.
This is a situation any rebuilding franchise would love to be in.
Of course, Lynch and the Niners have to make the right moves and avoid the contractual setbacks and mistakes that beset teams’ cap situations.
Yet San Francisco’s current situation begs Lynch to be aggressive, likely putting the 49ers into a position where they can seriously contend for a playoff berth — or more — in 2018.
Next: NFL free agency: 5 big-name players the 49ers should target
It’s a good time to be a Niners fan.