Off-Season Roster Outlook: Offense

Someone’s been squeezing rice in buckets [Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle]

In the past few years, we’ve been buyers. Now, our main goal is retention.

Now before I get into this, I am fully aware that few, if any, people reading this are as interested in the minutiae and finances of the NFL salary cap as I am. But… I also know that you need to understand the fundamentals of the salary cap for any of this to make sense. So I’m going to try and make this explanation of how things works as quick and simple as possible.

Salary Cap: For Beginners

• The NFL has a hard salary cap that is set before each year. That means the salaries (or salary cap figures, more accurately) of every player on the roster must fit under that salary cap EVERY year.

• Each player’s salary cap figure is a combination of annual salary, signing bonus (prorated evenly across each year of the contract), likely to be earned (LTBE) incentives, and roster bonuses. These figures fluctuate (sometimes wildly) from year-to-year.

• NFL contracts are NOT guaranteed, but they often include some guaranteed money (see: Kirk Cousins’ entire deal). All signing bonuses are guaranteed and paid out at time of signing, but for cap purposes they are prorated evenly across the years of the contract.

• Whenever a player is cut/released before his contract is complete, the team’s salary cap is charged all of the remaining guaranteed money on the contract. That leftover money, paid to a player who is no longer on the team, is called “dead cap.”

• So if a player signs a three-year contract that gives him $5M annually in non-guaranteed salary with a $12M signing bonus, they are counting $9M against the cap each year. But if they’re cut after only a single season, the team will be off the hook for the remaining non-guaranteed salary ($5M a year) but will have to pay out all of the signing bonus at once ($8M). Thus, cutting that player would result in a loss of $3M in the salary cap, or a “dead cap hit” or $3M.

Cap Space: While we won’t know for sure until the NFL comes out with an official salary cap number for 2020, the Niners are expected to have ~$13M in spending room in 2020. If that doesn’t sound like much — especially when you consider the free agents and major extensions we have looming this off-season — you’re right.

It’s not.

Luckily, we have salary cap wizard Paraag Marathe leading the charge. But while we can expect Marathe to milk every last drop out of this salary cap, we’re still going to have to make some tough decisions.

Note: As of this writing, the NFL is in collective bargaining talks with the NFLPA, with a couple of proposals on the table that could change the salary cap dramatically. The most obvious one being the discussed 17-game season, which will only be ratified if the players receive an increase in revenue share. For the record, I’m against an expanded playoff (for the sports’ sake), I’m against a 17-game season (for competitive balance and the players’ sake), and I’m 100% against a London team (for everyone’s sake because that’s the stupidest thing ever). But… if there is a London team… I hope it’s the Chargers in the AFC West because that’s like the worst case scenario and the NFL should be made to feel extra stupid for being so stupid.

Quarterback

Much has been made about the fact that Jimmy G has no more guaranteed money left on his contract, and — if released — would free up $22M in cap space. Indeed, this was the idea behind the “two-year tryout” that was built into Garoppolo’s contract when he signed that big extension. If after two years the Niners brass had soured on the idea of him leading the franchise, they could move on with little penalty.

And while much of that first year was lost due to a torn ACL and Jimmy G ended the Super Bowl on a sour note, he did just lead the Niners to the brink of a championship, performed very well over the course of his first full season as a starter, and is 21-5 as the team’s starting quarterback over the past three years. When he hasn’t started, we’re 4-20 (420, bwa bwa bwa).

Let’s not overthink this.

It’s also worth noting that Garoppolo’s fat contract should be looked at in the greater scheme of NFL quarterback contracts. Based on annual salary, Garoppolo is currently the 8th highest paid QB in the league, and will soon be surpassed by Dak Prescott, Patrick Mahomes, Deshaun Watson, etc. Remember, Garoppolo may be making an average of $27.5M per year, but Goff is making $33.5M, Foles is making $22M to (potentially) not even start, and Alex Smith — who hasn’t played in a year and a half — is making $23.5M. Replacing Garoppolo with another starting caliber quarterback would likely LOSE us money.

So again, let’s not overthink this.

As for backups, I would guess — unless a former Shanahan protege comes calling and offering a 5th rounder or better — we keep both Beathard and Mullens on the roster. Beathard is still on his rookie contract and Mullens is an exclusive rights free agent, meaning that as long as the Niners offer him $735K, the league minimum salary for third year players, he’ll be on the roster on opening day. Which is obviously an incredible bargain for a serviceable backup.

Running Back

Hats off to Shanahan and Lynch for recognizing how well Raheem Mostert was playing to end 2018 and signing him to a three-year $8.7M deal last off-season. That’s gotta be the best deal on the roster amongst non-rookies. But other than Mostert, the running back room could look noticeably different in 2020.

Tevin Coleman was an excellent addition and a great complement to Mostert on a reasonable salary. That being said, he has a $4.9M cap hit in 2020, his last season under contract, and none of that is guaranteed. Unless the Niners whiff on re-signing some of their own UFAs, I wouldn’t expect him back in 2020.

Jeff Wilson is an ERFA. He’s definitely worth the veteran minimum, especially if Coleman, our resident power back is let go.

Matt Breida is a restricted free agent (RFA), meaning the Niners can offer him one of three tier levels of contracts, each tied to draft pick compensation if another team were to sign him away. Tier 1 = $4M or a first round pick. Tier 2 = $3.3M or a second round pick. Tier 3 = $2.1M or no compensation. While Breida was a non-factor down the stretch, I would expect a tender. Probably at $3.3M to be safe.

That leads us to Jerick McKinnon, the 7th-biggest cap hit on our roster, who has made upwards of $16M without suiting up for a single regular season snap for the 49ers. While cutting him — and saving $4.55M in cap space — is what everyone is clamoring for, I would expect something a bit more nuanced. We’re obviously not going to pay his $8.55M cap hit, but given the loyalty we’ve shown him and the fact that his value in the free market is practically nil, I would expect a major restructuring instead of a release. Jet has said he wants to play for the 49ers, so knocking his salary down to something closer to the veteran’s minimum — and thus saving more money than we would have by cutting him — seems plausible. Either way, we’re going to save AT LEAST $4.55M on his contract. So you can add that to the cap.

Lastly, our fullback. The 2019 season has shown exactly how crucial Juice has been to our offense and he’s entering the final year of his contract. At 28, as a key contributor to the team, and at a $6.7M cap hit, I would expect an extension that can save us a few million this off-season.

Whatever series of events the Niners brass decides on, we’ll certainly be adding spending money to our salary cap here. Potentially, quite a bit.

Wide Receiver

Deebo and Pettis are on rookie contracts. Bourne is a RFA, and I would expect he gets a second round tender given his play and how many teams would like to swoop up a young player like him. Richie James had a rough Super Bowl but was — for the most part — good on special teams. I wouldn’t expect him to make an offensive impact, but at a salary under $700K, he’ll be around unless a new addition pushes him out. Jordan Mathews will be gone, but — based on his availability last year — would be a natural add mid-season if injuries (knock on wood) strike the group. And lastly, I think we can all agree that Marquise Goodwin, despite being a unanimously well-liked and super nice guy, will be released, freeing up $3.65M.

That leaves us with only one question mark: 33 year-old Emmanuel Sanders.

The mid-season trade for Sanders was a huge boost to our passing attack, providing both a legitimate threat on all levels of the field and a veteran presence that greatly helped the development of our young receiver corps. Statistically speaking, here’s that impact, courtesy of The Athletic (and from a paid PFF subscription level that I don’t have):

While there’s potentially a tiny bit of statistical noise in there considering Garoppolo was coming off an ACL tear and naturally was going to start the season slower, the trade for Sanders (week 7) was relatively close to Shanahan’s decision to shrink his receiver rotation to three (week 11), and we got our starting left tackles back during that time (week 9; week 13), the impact Sanders had was real and apparent.

It’s also worth noting, that Garoppolo’s stats after the Sanders trade included top 5 finishes in: yards per attempt (1st), completion % (2nd), PFF passing grade (5th), passing yards (2nd), passer rating (4th), and touchdown passes (4th). Sanders was clearly a massive upgrade to our receiving corps.

But since it was a one year rental and he’s now an Unrestricted Free Agent (UFA), that means he can sign wherever he pleases. And that leaves us with a handful of questions in determining if we can afford him.

(1) Was his impact a jumpstart or more of an ongoing mentorship?

If the former, perhaps that one year was enough to set Deebo and Bourne on a path for continued development and growth. If the latter, Sanders could be more important to this receiving corps than his raw statistics say.

(2) At this point in his career, would he take a chip-chasing discount?

At the moment, Spotrac projects Sanders’ annual salary to be $10M on a two-year deal. If we re-sign Armstead, that would likely put Sanders out of our price range.

However, Sanders said pre-trade that he was thinking of playing 2-3 more years and was prioritizing competing for championships during that time. He’s clearly a perfect fit for our receiving corps and was an overthrow away from an epic double coverage-beating game-winning touchdown. We can always hope for a discount.

(3) Is there anyone on the roster who can replicate his production?

That answer to that is pretty clearly no, but there’s at least a chance to patchwork together some of his snaps from multiple sources.

Trent Taylor, who — long ago in 2017 — was one of Garoppolo’s favorite targets will (theoretically) be healthy next year. While Taylor is predominantly a slot receiver, Sanders played 38% of his snaps in the slot, so it’s not hard to see Taylor soaking up some of those.

There’s also Jalen Hurd, who will likely have a varied position-less role (similar to Deebo but morphing between different positions). It’s hard to see him playing a ton outside in year one — particularly cause he didn’t really do that in college — but he too could take slot reps, even if his play is a bit more like a tight end.

Finally, there’s Dante Pettis. The theoretical breakout star of 2019 turned permanent dog house inhabitant could theoretically put things together and maximize the vast physical tools he has. But given his sophomore campaign, that’s obviously not something that we can necessarily bank on.

Unless he’s willing to give us a discount, or we don’t re-sign Armstead, it doesn’t seem like Sanders will be back. If that’s the case, replicating his presence would require tremendous growth from our wideouts, a potential cheap-o free agent looking for a chip/prove it deal, or one of the many many talented wideouts in this draft class (there are many who believe it to be the best WR class in multiple decades).

Most likely, it will require some combination of the above.

Tight End

George Kittle, whose $719K salary for 2019 was the NFL’s best deal, now enters the last year of his rookie contract and is about to GET PAID. It’s figuring out exactly how much that is gonna be the tricky part.

It likely helps us here that the tight end market is rather tame. The highest paid tight end (in terms of annual salary) is — somehow — Jimmy Graham ($10M), followed closely by Travis Kelce ($9.38M, on a deal signed three years ago), and Jordan Reed ($9.35M), whose biggest news story of late is that he’s finally getting healthy enough to get cut.

Kittle, who is both an A+ blocker and finished the year as the #1 most efficient pass catcher in the NFL regardless of position, is clearly the best tight end in football. Thus, he will reset this market. The question becomes if he “resets it” or blows it out of the fucking water.

A multi-year deal averaging $11.4M a year (as projected by Spotrac) would be a major win for us. Others are guessing something closer to the $15M/year range. While that would still be worth it, it would be nice to be able to lock Kittle up long-term without giving him a salary that is 50% bigger than literally everyone else in the NFL who plays the position.

We’ve done “resetting the market” deals for other players in the past, but — given the state of rebuild our team was in and the salary cap space we had — we had a bit more leeway to do that. We want Kittle happy and well-compensated, but if we can keep his annual salary the highest for a tight end and not way way way the highest for a tight end, that would be nice, as any money saved there could prove crucial in retaining other talent.

Elsewhere, Levine Toilolo is a UFA but I’d love to get him back for his mauling run blocking ability. He was only $800K this year and can likely be retained for something similar in 2020. Ross Dwelley, who did a great job filling in for Kittle and Juice is an ERFA. He should be back on the league minimum.

Undrafted free agent tight end/fullback Daniel Helm was getting some love in the preseason and made it onto the practice squad. By the end of the year, whether due to play or other teams’ interest or both, he was on the 53-man roster. I’d assume he gets re-upped as well.

Offensive Line

While the back half of our season wasn’t always kind to our interior offensive line, it’s still worth mentioning we were a dominant run blocking team, and the players who had some issues in pass pro (namely Garland and Person), were a big part of that success on the ground. Also, while the blitz pickups weren’t ideal in the Super Bowl, there’s no shame in losing reps against top 5 defensive tackles (Jarrett, Jones, Donald twice). That being said, this is still (according to ESPN’s somewhat dubious stat) the league’s 26th-ranked squad in pass block win rate. As far as pass protection goes, there’s room for improvement.

At tackle, Joe Staley and Mike McGlinchey both missed time due to injury, but once they got back to health, they were dominant in both phases of the game. McGlinchey, despite a slow start to the season, really showed improvement in his pass pro down the stretch and finished the season ranked the 5th-best tackle in terms of pass-block win rate by ESPN. And while I have serious questions about a ranking that didn’t include either New Orleans tackle or Mitchell Schwartz in its top ten… at least that’s something. Staley has two more years on his deal and McGlinchey is still on his rookie contract. They’ll be back.

Behind our top two tackles are two very intriguing young players. 6th round rookie Justin Skule performed admirably on the left side, really only struggling while dinged up against the Packers. While Daniel Brunskill, NFL journeyman, AAF standout, and player who had never seen a snap in the regular season up until this season, was — to borrow from every review of every movie or TV show — “an absolute revelation” as the Niners’ tackle/swing man. Skule is on his rookie contract. Brunskill is an ERFA and will be back next year.

On the inside, Weston Richburg was playing good ball before he went down, and it should be noted that the interior OL wasn’t getting as much attention until he was shelved for the season. Despite a long injury history, Richburg isn’t going anywhere. He recently restructured his contact to free up more cap space in 2020.

Backup Ben Garland is an interesting case. As a 31 year-old backup center who was playing on a one-year minimum contract, we got a ton out of him last year. And perhaps we can get him back for a similar rate in 2020. Yes, he had his issues in pass protection, but — according to PFF — those issues were outweighed by a run blocking grade that was massively superior to Richburg’s. And while I wouldn’t go so far as to say he was better than Richburg (after all, PFF has some questionable OL grades and Richburg was getting mentions as an All-Pro candidate midway through the season), having a solid backup around given Richburg’s injury history would be nice.

At left guard, Laken Tomlinson is a rock. He’s a smart player — unsurprising considering he’s a Duke grad with plans to go into neurosurgery post-NFL — and while not a world beater, he’s been consistent, both in his snap counts (he played 100% of offensive snaps this year, 97% the last) and his play.

The clear weak spot in pass pro is our right guard, Mike Person, whose incredibly generic moniker sounds like the default name of someone you’d find wandering the neighborhood in The Sims 2. But while there’s no more guaranteed money left on his contract, that contract also only pays him $2.5M a year, which is a great deal for a starting guard. I highly doubt ShanaLynch wants to shell out big money for a guard — probably ever but especially in this off-season — so I doubt Person is going anywhere either.

But if there’s any shuffling along the starting OL it would likely be Brunskill taking over for Person. Brunskill — at 26 years old — projects as a possible successor at tackle when Joe Staley retires in the next few years and gives the Niners the rare situation where they have (up to) two viable tackles on their bench. But he also got snaps in at guard near the end of the season. And while his first interior start was a bit of a baptism by fire at the hands of Aaron Donald, he performed very well the next week against the Seahawks. Could he potentially get the nod over Person? Or will the Niners, who — at pick #31 — are slotted in prime “trade down and get a starting interior lineman” territory, add to their ranks via the draft?

That’s where our roster stands in terms of offense. Next up (unsurprisingly) is defense.