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The 49ers Have Nearly $75 Million in Option Bonuses to Pay on April 1

The 49ers seem to have a cash-flow issue.
Grant Cohn|
Dec 1, 2024; Orchard Park, New York, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey (23) warms up before a game against the Buffalo Bills at Highmark Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark Konezny-Imagn Images
Dec 1, 2024; Orchard Park, New York, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey (23) warms up before a game against the Buffalo Bills at Highmark Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Mark Konezny-Imagn Images | Mark Konezny-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers seem to have a cash-flow issue.

The owners just purchased a controlling stake in a Scottish soccer team, they also own an English soccer team and they recently have placed tight financial constraints on their American football team according to 49ers general manager John Lynch. That's why they're gutting their roster.

The 49ers owners spent a whopping $334 million on the 49ers' players last season only to watch them go 6-11 and miss the playoffs. Now, the 49ers want to spend more prudently. And they presumably want to extend Brock Purdy whose contract will be massive.

So the 49ers don't have much cash to spend on other players which is why they've been signing backups so far in free agency.

Unfortunately for the 49ers, they have almost $75 million worth of option bonuses they will have to pay on April 1. Here are those bonuses:

Nick Bosa: $29,015,545
Brandon Aiyuk: $22,855,000
Christian McCaffrey: $14,245,000
Deommodore Lenoir: $6,500,000
Jauan Jennings: $2,205,000

Of those five players, Lenoir and Jennings definitely are worth the money they're owed on April 1. The others might not be worth their price exorbitant price tags.

Trading Bosa in the next few weeks would save the 49ers nearly $30 million in cash and bring back at least one first-round pick.

Trading Aiyuk in the next few weeks would save the 49ers nearly $23 million in cash, although it's unlikely another team would want to take on his salary before he can run or pass a physical.

Trading McCaffrey in the next few weeks would save the 49ers nearly $15 million in cash and bring back a a second-round pick at least. Keep in mind, the Niners just gave running back Jordan Mason a second-round tender that will pay him $5.3 million in 2025. That's starting-running-back money, not backup money.

If the 49ers truly want to save as much cash as possible, they should consider trading Bosa and McCaffrey as soon as possible.

Embrace the rebuild. Start over.

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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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