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Why did the 49ers Release Veteran DE Leonard Floyd?

This is one of the strangest things the 49ers did this offseason, and they've done some whoppers so far.
Grant Cohn|
Sep 9, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers defensive end Leonard Floyd (56) watches the video replay in the second quarter 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 defensive end Leonard Floyd (56) watches the video replay in the second quarter 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

This is one of the strangest things the 49ers did this offseason, and they've done some whoppers so far.

On March 11, they released veteran defensive end Leonard Floyd and took on an $8.632 million dead cap hit to do so. Floyd is 32, but he hasn't missed a game since 2017 and he recorded 8.5 sacks last season, second-most on the 49ers behind Nick Bosa who had 9. He's a solid, consistent player on a team that has tons of injury issues.

When the 49ers released Floyd, they reportedly tried to sign Nick Bosa's brother, Joey Bosa, who's injured often. So that seems to be the main reason Floyd got cut -- so the 49ers could scrape together enough cash to make Nick Bosa's brother an offer.

Ultimately, the offer wasn't big enough, so Joey Bosa signed a one-year, $12.6 million deal with the Bills. Meanwhile, Floyd signed a one-year, $10 million deal with the Falcons and the 49ers signed no one to replace him.

Now, the 49ers starting defensive end opposite Nick Bosa is Yetur Gross-Matos who has just 17 sacks in five seasons. Behind Gross-Matos, the 49ers have Drake Jackson, who might never play again after tearing a quad tendon in 2023 and missing all of 2024.

So, in addition to drafting two plug-and-play Day 1 starters at defensive tackle, the 49ers also need to draft a starting defensive end all because they released the one they had simply to try to sign another one they couldn't afford.

Priceless.

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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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