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The Colts are Signing 49ers CB Charvarius Ward for 3 Years, $60 Mil

The 49ers just lost their best cornerback.
Grant Cohn|
Oct 6, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers cornerback Charvarius Ward (7) after the game against the Arizona Cardinals at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images
Oct 6, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers cornerback Charvarius Ward (7) after the game against the Arizona Cardinals at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images | Kelley L Cox-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers just lost their best cornerback.

Charvarius Ward is signing a three-year deal worth up to $60 million with the Indianapolis Colts according to ESPN's Adam Schefter. The 49ers never have paid this much money annually to a cornerback before, so it makes sense that Ward left.

Instead of signing Ward, the 49ers gave Deommodore Lenoir a five-year, $88 million extension, or roughly $17.7 million per season. Lenoir is younger and more versatile than Ward considering Lenoir can play in the slot and outside, but Ward is a legit No. 1 cornerback who can shut down legit No. 1 wide receivers.

That's why Ward just got so much money despite coming off a down season by his standards.

In 2023, Ward was one of the top cornerbacks in the NFL -- he led the league with 23 pass breakups and routinely shadowed the opponent's best receiver around the field.

In 2024, Ward's daughter died midseason. So he was going through emotional distress and post-traumatic stress all season. Afterward, he expressed a desire to play somewhere other than Northern California because he can't help but associate the area with his trauma. Understandable.

Now, the 49ers starting cornerbacks are Lenoir and Renardo Green. It's unclear who their third cornerback will be. It could be Darrell Luter Jr. whom the 49ers drafted in 2023. Or it could be a cornerback the 49ers draft this year.

Stay tuned.

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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.

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