49ers roster: How Dee Ford release will impact salary cap

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The 49ers were able to wait it out with injured EDGE Dee Ford, whose post-June 1 release will still cost a lot of dead cap but won’t be as bad as before.

Right now, at least at the time of this article being written, veteran EDGE Dee Ford is still on the San Francisco 49ers roster.

One shouldn’t expect things to stay that way for very long, though.

The 31-year-old pass-rusher whom the Niners acquired via trade from the Kansas City Chiefs early in 2019, subsequently signing him to a five-year extension worth $85.5 million, subsequently dealt with a series of injuries during his three-year tenure with San Francisco, being limited to 11 regular-season games his first season with the squad, just one in 2020 and then only six in 2021.

And while he was notably productive in the pass-rush department when healthy, a chronic back injury ultimately put into question his greatest asset that was missing: availability.

Dee Ford Defense & Fumbles Table
			Game	Game	Def	Fumb	Fumb		Tack	Tack	Tack	Tack	Tack
Year	Age	Tm	G	GS	PD	FF	FR	Sk	Comb	Solo	Ast	TFL	QBHits
2014	23	KAN	16	0	1			1.5	8	4	4	1	5
2015	24	KAN	14	5	2			4.0	23	21	2	6	11
2016	25	KAN	15	14	2	1	0	10.0	38	25	13	12	17
2017	26	KAN	6	6	1	1	0	2.0	13	11	2	4	7
2018*	27	KAN	16	16		7	0	13.0	55	42	13	13	29
2019	28	SFO	11	2	1	2	0	6.5	14	10	4	6	6
2020	29	SFO	1	0				0.0	3	1	2	0	0
2021	30	SFO	6	0		1	0	3.0	5	3	2	2	4
Career	Career		85	43	7	12	0	40.0	159	117	42	44	79
5 yr	5 yr	KAN	67	41	6	9	0	30.5	137	103	34	36	69
3 yr	3 yr	SFO	18	2	1	3	0	9.5	22	14	8	8	10

Provided by Pro-Football-Reference.com
Generated 6/4/2022.

Even though the 49ers reworked Ford’s contract, he’s still going to carry plenty of dead money over into 2022 no matter what the Niners do with him.

Despite that, general manager John Lynch already suggested the team was prepared to move on from Ford anyway this offseason.

Let’s dive a bit deeper into how Ford’s inevitable release will impact San Francisco.