5 high-priced players SF 49ers might move on from
By Peter Panacy
No. 3: SF 49ers Center Weston Richburg
Average Salary per Year: $9,500,000
San Francisco can easily be regretting the decision to ink veteran center Weston Richburg to his lucrative five-year, $47.5 million deal back in 2018, particularly after he missed the final three regular-season games last season and through the team’s playoff/Super Bowl run with a knee injury.
That same injury has kept Richburg out of the lineup for the entirety of 2020, too, and there’s no timetable for his return.
The situation with moving on from Richburg gets a bit trickier, at least in terms of the timetable. Should the SF 49ers move on at the start of the league new year, Richburg’s dead-money hit would be over $6.9 million with only $4.9 million in cap savings. But if the Niners can somehow figure out a way to manage him on the roster until after June 1, a cut would generate $8.35 million in cap savings with only $3.5 million in dead money.
That might be the route San Francisco takes.
Two reasons for this: Reserve center Ben Garland, a pending free agent, might be a priority re-sign on the cheap. And the 2021 NFL Draft is awfully deep for interior offensive linemen, suggesting John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan could go that route instead.