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Why the 49ers Could Listen to Trade Offers for Nick Bosa

Hear me out.

Grant Cohn

Dec 30, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa (97) during the game against the Detroit Lions at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Sergio Estrada-Imagn Images
Dec 30, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa (97) during the game against the Detroit Lions at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Sergio Estrada-Imagn Images / Sergio Estrada-Imagn Images
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As long as the 49ers are saving cash by trading players who haven't lived up to their contracts, why not trade Nick Bosa?

Hear me out.

The 49ers just traded Deebo Samuel for a mere fifth-round pick just to avoid paying him a $15 million option bonus on March 22. They also could trade Brandon Aiyuk for peanuts so they don't have to pay him a $22 million option bonus on April 1.

So the 49ers are willing to trade good players for mid-round picks if it saves them cash. Remember, they spent $334 million last year on a team that went 6-11. They want to cut back on spending.

Which brings us to Bosa. He has a $29 million option bonus in his contract that kicks in on April 1. The 49ers will have to write him a fat check in a few weeks if he's still on the team.

Bosa isn't worth all the money the 49ers pay him, but he is a terrific player. And if the 49ers decide to trade him, they probably could get not one but two first-round picks in return.

So the 49ers have a choice. Keep Bosa and pay him $29 million on April 1, or trade him for two first-round picks and draft his replacement, someone who will be much younger and cheaper than Bosa for at least the next four years.

I would trade Bosa. He'll never be worth more than he is today.

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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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