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The 49ers Place a 2nd Round Tender on Jordan Mason

The 49ers are rebuilding. It's hard to know who will leave and who will stick around.
Grant Cohn|
Sep 9, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Jordan Mason (24) talks with ESPN's John Sutcliffe on Monday Night Football after the win against the New York Jets at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: David Gonzales-Imagn Images
Sep 9, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Jordan Mason (24) talks with ESPN's John Sutcliffe on Monday Night Football after the win against the New York Jets at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: David Gonzales-Imagn Images | David Gonzales-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers just did something smart.

They placed a second-round tender on restricted free agent running back Jordan Mason according to ESPN's Adam Schefter. That means they will pay him $5.3 million next season unless another team matches the offer. In that case, the 49ers could increase their offer to Mason or trade him for a second-round pick. So if they lose him, they'll get something nice in return.

But the 49ers probably won't lose Mason. As good as he is, running backs are a dime a dozen in the NFL. So instead of trading the 49ers a second-round pick for Mason, teams will simply draft a running back in Round 2.

Which means the 49ers should have one of the best and most expensive running back tandems in the league next season between Mason and Christian McCaffrey if McCaffrey stays healthy and head coach Kyle Shanahan splits their carries evenly. Shanahan usually uses one at a time until that player gets injured.

It's good to see the 49ers splurge a little bit on a backup player during an offseason in which they've been relentlessly cheap.

It's possible that Mason won't sign his tender and that the 49ers will give him a multi-year extension instead. That's what Jauan Jennings did last season when the 49ers gave him a second-round tender. He never signed it. He eventually signed a two-year deal before minicamp. Maybe that's what the 49ers plan to do with Mason.

Or maybe they want to do something drastic like trade McCaffrey in the next few weeks before his $14.245 million option bonus kicks in on April 1.

The 49ers are rebuilding. It's hard to know who will leave and who will stick around.

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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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