49ers roster: 5 moves John Lynch must execute without question in 2022
By Peter Panacy
The 49ers will face a lot of challenges in 2022, and John Lynch shouldn’t be thinking twice about making some bold roster moves and changes.
There are plenty of takeaways from the San Francisco 49ers‘ 2021 season. And with four weeks left to go before the playoffs commence, and the Niners clinging to a Wild Card berth, there are going to be even more valuable pointers and tidbits to discuss and analyze.
To sum things up, San Francisco is a contending team, having won five of its last seven games, yet there are notable flaws and shortcomings that have been revealed over the course of the year.
Including some that have paralleled the 49ers’ recent hot streak.
General manager John Lynch better be playing close attention to these. And while its far too late to engineer any kind of blockbuster move this season, 2022 is going to afford plenty of chances for Lynch and Co. to improve the roster however possible.
As the saying goes, “if you’re not improving, you’re getting worse.”
That’s the mantra Lynch needs to have hitting the 2022 offseason, and these five moves would help both him and the Niners improve a great deal.
No. 5: 49ers must extend Nick Bosa at the earliest chance
2022 will mark the first year of eligibility for EDGE Nick Bosa, who is rocketing his way towards the 2021 Comeback Player of the Year award after tearing his ACL a season ago and should be in the running for the NFL Defensive Player of the Year award, too.
That’s what 14 sacks and a league-leading 18 tackles for a loss will do for you.
But extending Bosa won’t come cheap. Over the Cap currently values his 2021 production at $18.8 million, and there’s an awfully good chance the third-year pro winds up eclipsing his brother, Los Angeles Chargers EDGE Joey Bosa, and Pittsburgh Steelers EDGE T.J. Watt as the highest-paid defender in the NFL with an estimated annual cost average of $28.5 million.
Do it.
San Francisco can anticipate the 2022 salary cap to jump up from $182.5 million to approximately $208 million next season, and front-loading Nick Bosa’s would-be deal would help take advantage of that, ensuring one of the league’s premier pass-rushers is locked up long term.
And another must-do roster move listed here would free up even more space, too.