There's a buzz the 49ers could make Yetur Gross-Matos a cap casualty this offseason, but the reality suggests he's more likely to be retained.
The San Francisco 49ers have to make some bold changes to their defensive line this offseason, both in terms of beefing up the interior and finding a quality edge rusher to pair with All-Pro Nick Bosa.
Paralleling that requirement is the potential departure of incumbent players.
The Niners have already declared Pro Bowl defensive tackle Javon Hargrave will be a cap casualty this offseason, someone who'll receive a post-June 1 designation that'll free up more than $12 million over the next two years.
Another name who's been tossed around as a possible cap casualty is defensive end Yetur Gross-Matos, a free-agent pickup from 2024 who missed the first half of the season because of a knee injury suffered during the preseason.
Along with wide receiver Deebo Samuel, who recently requested a trade and who seems as if his San Francisco tenure is coming to a close anyway, NFL.com's Matt Okada listed Gross-Matos as a potential 49ers cap casualty this offseason.
Acknowledging the Niners are probably going to use their two post-June 1 designations on Hargrave and Samuel, Okada still feels the 26-year-old Gross-Matos is a candidate to be released:
"Yetur Gross-Matos might be worth cutting just from a value perspective after he played 54 percent of the team's defensive snaps in 2024 and logged just four sacks, 19 tackles and 10 QB pressures. With a $9.5 million cap hit in 2025, that kind of production is simply not good enough. This move is much more appealing if he's designated as a post-June-1 cut, opening up a valuable $7.8 million in cap savings, but then again, one of San Francisco's two post-June 1 slots is already ticketed for Javon Hargrave, and it's possible the other is used on Samuel. The Niners could just call it a day and move on from Gross-Matos for $2.9 million in savings right away."
Sure, it's definitely possible. Gross-Matos carries zero in guaranteed money for 2025, and the saved money could be spent elsewhere if San Francisco feels the defender is mere "dead weight" on a roster that could use an infusion of talent.
But, there seems to be a bigger chance Gross-Matos is retained through the balance of the original two-year deal signed back in 2024.
Keeping Yetur Gross-Matos makes more sense for 49ers than releasing him
Let's put things into context here.
For starters, the 49ers eyed Gross-Matos out of Penn State entering the 2020 NFL Draft only to watch the Carolina Panthers select him in Round 2, No. 38 overall.
Gross-Matos never truly found his footing with Carolina, playing under a multitude of coaching staffs and bouncing between starting and reserve roles. Yet the Niners nevertheless felt the former Nittany Lion was an "unpolished gem" who merely needed some consistency in his development, hence why they made him one of their first free-agent pickups in 2024.
Four sacks over 11 games isn't horrid production, per se, and Gross-Matos showed he can be a viable rotational pass-rusher once he returned fully healthy from that knee injury.
B-level pass-rushers typically command roughly $8 million in annual salary, so one might understand Gross-Matos' $9.473 million cap hit in 2025 as a slight overpayment.
However, considering the crop of reserve pass-rushers at San Francisco's disposal (Drake Jackson, Robert Beal Jr., Sam Okuayinonu), it might behoove the 49ers to let Gross-Matos play out the balance of his contract, hoping a fully healthy version could help benefit the back end of the D-line's depth chart.
Unless the Niners land a deep array of pass-rushers this offseason, retaining Gross-Matos seems to be the smarter play.
All contractual information, courtesy of Over the Cap unless otherwise indicated.
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