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Raheem Mostert Requests Trade

This was avoidable.
Grant Cohn|
Raheem Mostert Requests Trade
Raheem Mostert Requests Trade

This was avoidable. And predictable.

After requesting a raise the 49ers refused to give him, running back Raheem Mostert now has requested a trade, according to his agent, Brett Tessler.

Mostert signed a three-year extension with the 49ers in 2019 that pays him $2.9 million per season—it's a special-teams contract, as his agent pointed out. He had just 42 career carries before last season. But midway through the 2019 season, he became the 49ers lead running back and led the NFL in yards per carry with 5.6. He was one of the main reasons the 49ers went to the Super Bowl; they might not have made it had he not run for 220 yards and four touchdowns in the NFC championship game against the Packers.

Now he's the 49ers main running back, and wants a raise. Can you blame him? Wouldn't you want a raise? Fair is fair. If the 49ers want him to be their running back, they should pay him like a running back. At least acknowledge that his role on the team has changed. Don't blatantly take advantage of him. He's 28. His career might not last much longer.

The 49ers currently have more than $12 million in cap space. If they were to give Mostert an additional $2.4 million in 2020, he would be one of the 10 highest-paid running backs in the NFL. $2.4 million is nothing to the 49ers.

The 49ers are being stubborn and self destructive. They need Mostert in 2020—they probably can't win the Super Bowl without him. Maybe they could if they still had running back Matt Breida, but they traded him to the Dolphins. So Mostert's backup is Tevin Coleman, who's mediocre.

Better to give Mostert an additional $2.4 million than to trade him out of spite. He's worth far more than whatever the 49ers would get in return for him.

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.

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