The 49ers Could Release Kyle Juszczyk this Offseason

Last year, Kyle Juszczyk had to take a significant pay cut just to stay on the 49ers. This year, they may not offer him a pay cut.
Jan 5, 2025; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers fullback Kyle Juszczyk (44) against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
Jan 5, 2025; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers fullback Kyle Juszczyk (44) against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images / Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
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Last year, Kyle Juszczyk had to take a significant pay cut just to stay on the 49ers. This year, they may not offer him a pay cut. Instead, they simply could release him.

Juszczyk will turn 34 in April. And next season will be the final year of his contract. He currently has zero guaranteed money left on it, which means they could release him and not pay him another dime. In addition, his salary cap number will be roughly $6.5 million in 2025, which means he will have the 10th-highest cap hit on the team behind only Fred Warner, George Kittle, Trent Williams, Nick Bosa, Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk, Leonard Floyd, Yetur Gross-Matos and Christian McCaffrey.

That means Juszczyk will have a higher cap hit than starting right tackle Colton McKivitz and start center Jake Brendel. Clearly, Juszczyk is better than those two players. But fullback is far less important than center and right tackle because those positions protect the quarterback and the fullback does not.

Juszczyk essentially is a miniature-pulling guard who occasionally catches a pass. The 49ers can't afford to dedicate cap space to his skill set anymore. They need to seriously invest in their offensive line to protect the massive investment they're going to make in Brock Purdy.

By releasing Juszczyk, the 49ers would create nearly $3 million in cap space. More importantly, they would create opportunities for younger, better players to get on the field and make plays.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.