The bill has officially come due San Francisco 49ers.
After three seasons of relatively easy payroll management thanks to the massive advantage having a quarterback on a rookie contract provides, Brock Purdy is due for an extension. It means cuts have been forced to be made across the franchise.
San Francisco has already seen a mass of talent leave in the offseason, with players like Deebo Samuel, Aaron Banks, Charvarius Ward, Talanoa Hufanga, Dre Greenlaw and more all leaving via trades or free agency. While one could argue their departures came just because the 49ers didn’t want to pay them, there’s more to it than that—they have to pay someone else.
49ers owner Jed York addressed the financial elephant in the room at the NFL’s annual meetings on Tuesday.
"I've been called worse," York said, when asked about accusations of being “cheap,” per a story by ESPN’s Nick Wagoner. "I get it. Fans care. You want to win. And when you're in a world where everybody is watching the NFL the first week of free agency or at least the first few days of free agency, it's a frenzy. ... When you're not overly active in that space, it gets easy to say, 'Oh, you don't want to win.' ... I don't know that, as we looked at the board, that there was somebody that we felt made that type of an impact more so than making the decision to try to go pay Brock."
Once the literal last pick in the NFL draft, Purdy has emerged as a stellar starting quarterback for San Francisco, including a performance in the 2023 season that saw him finish fourth in MVP voting.
In his career thus far, Purdy has taken the 49ers to two NFC championship games and turned one of those trips into a Super Bowl appearance, but has earned just $2.8 million since joining the league. Given the massive deals the likes of Joe Burrow and Trevor Lawrence have signed in recent years, Purdy’s extension with the 49ers could easily surpass $50 million a year in new money.
As things stand, no deal is in place with Purdy, and head coach Kyle Shanahan addressed the possibility of his quarterback holding out heading into 2025 should an extension fail to materialize.
"I know Brock doesn't want to do that. We don't want to do that. I mean, no one wants to do that," Shanahan said at the NFL annual meeting in Palm Beach. "But these are negotiations that go on between agents and our organization, and it's over a lot of money and stuff.”
There’s still a long way to go between April 1 and a holdout, but San Francisco is undoubtedly eager to get the matter settled and start planning for the future. After three seasons of playing loose with their salary cap, the 49ers’ math just got a lot harder.