The 49ers Could Restructure Fred Warner's Contract this Offseason

Brock Purdy isn't the only player on the 49ers who will get a new deal this offseason.
Jan 5, 2025; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers linebacker Fred Warner (54) against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
Jan 5, 2025; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers linebacker Fred Warner (54) against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images / Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images
In this story:

Brock Purdy isn't the only player on the 49ers who will get a new deal this offseason.

Fred Warner could get a new deal as well even though he has two seasons remaining on his current contract. That's because it has no guaranteed money left and his salary-cap number will be a bloated $29.1 million next season and $26.7 million in 2026. Which means the 49ers could create cap space by restructuring Warner's deal and giving him a signing this offseason instead of big weekly game checks.

The 49ers did similar restructures last year for both Christian McCaffrey and Trent Williams. Both of them had multiple years but no guaranteed money remaining on their previous deals, so the 49ers took care of them and lowered their cap numbers at the same time. It seems highly likely that Warner would get the same treatment.

Warner played through a fractured ankle since Week 1 and still earned his fourth first-team All Pro selection in the past five seasons. He was the only player on the team who was a first-team All Pro this season -- that includes George Kittle who was a second-team All Pro.

Warner most likely is a future Hall of Famer and is the unquestioned leader of the 49ers defense. The 49ers even could decide to extend his contract rather than restructure it if they want him to retire with the organization. He seems like he could go into coaching or television after he retires.

Download and follow The Cohn Zohn Podcast.


Published
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.