SF 49ers: 5 free agents who won’t be back in 2021
By Peter Panacy
No. 2: SF 49ers Safety Jaquiski Tartt
There’s an awfully high chance strong safety Jaquiski Tartt played his final snap in a Niners uniform.
Tartt suffered a turf-toe injury back in Week 9, and Kyle Shanahan revealed Tartt would be placed on season-ending injured reserve. This opens up the door for backup safeties like Marcell Harris, Tarvarius Moore and Johnathan Cyprien to see an uptick in field time to round out the rest of the season.
Harris and Moore are both under rookie contracts through 2021, making them much cheaper commodities for the cap-stressed SF 49ers.
Tartt has been a good player for the Niners when healthy. But that’s been the problem. Between 2017 and 2019, Tartt appeared in just 19 regular-season games due to a myriad of injuries. His latest setback will cut out an additional seven more, making him less reliable than San Francisco would have otherwise liked.
And it might be the route the team would like to take, going with someone with a less-lengthy injury history instead of attempting to re-sing a player who, while solid, isn’t on the field as much as needed.