Reasons for and against 49ers re-signing RB Raheem Mostert

Why 49ers shouldn’t re-sign Raheem Mostert

There’s a bit of a misconception Kyle Shanahan won’t spend top dollar on running backs. That’s not true. The 49ers dished out hefty contracts in NFL free agency to former tailbacks like Jerick McKinnon and Tevin Coleman before.

It doesn’t mean that’s the right approach, though.

Turning 30 years old before the start of the 2022 regular season, Mostert will likely be receiving his final significant contract, and him being on the wrong side of 30 years old doesn’t exactly make for a good free-agent target. At least not from the Niners’ vantage point.

There’s also the injury history, too, marked most recently by missing eight games with various setbacks in 2020 before that knee injury suffered at the very beginning of the 2021 campaign.

San Francisco’s ground game got by just fine enough without Mostert being a key factor last season, as the team finished with the league’s seventh-most rush yards during the regular season (2,166) and averaged a respectable-if-not-overly impressive 4.3 yards per carry (16th). It would be one thing if the 49ers’ rushing attack wholly underwhelmed over the course of 2021, but that wasn’t the case.

Even if the Niners part ways with Jimmy Garoppolo and free up significant cap space, that money would be best served to go elsewhere, likely in an effort to extend other key players like Deebo Samuel or to shore up other areas of need on the roster, such as cornerback or the interior of the offensive line.

Sure, re-signing Mostert would have some merit, but it’s hard to see that outweighing the reality of it being a smarter move to let him walk once free agency begins this spring.