How the 49ers Intend to Use Their Abundant Cap Space

The 49ers currently have the most salary cap space in the NFL with $41.5 million.

How that occurred was due to the contract restructures of George Kittle, Trent Williams, and Arik Armstead. The restructures of Kittle and Williams took place first prior to the extension of Nick Bosa, which cleared a combined $23.22 million. After that came Armstead. His restructure followed after Bosa was extended, which freed up $11.78 million in cap space.

The big question after all that freed up salary cap space is what the 49ers plan to do with it? With so much space, the 49ers could easily make a move for this season if there is one necessary to execute. However, that isn't how the 49ers intend to use their abundant cap space. General manager John Lynch spoke to NBC Sports Bay Area where he revealed what the abundant space is for.

“Really, we always look at the cap for three years out,” Lynch said. “Obviously, we have all that room this year. But really it’s to create room for future years because we roll everything over. It helps us in future years because it creates some room we’re going to need... We’ve pretty much done what we’re going to do this year, but you never know with the trade deadline and all that.”

Ultimately, the 49ers created all that cap space to give themselves the most flexible scenario. It's always excellent when a team has options both on and off the field. I would suspect that the cap space being rolled into next year is with Brandon Aiyuk in mind. His contract extension is going to be a doozy, so the 49ers need all the room they can get.

With Brock Purdy's minimal salary of less than $1 million, the 49ers can retain all of their high end players. They won't have this luxury for long, which makes sense why the 49ers are doing this now as it is the right opportunity for them to maximize. And should there be a need to trade and acquire someone, they can do that too. While that is unlikely in my estimation, again it is optimal that the 49ers at least have the flexibility to do so.