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Why the 49ers Could Trade Nick Bosa in 2026

Nick Bosa still is a good player. He's just not as good as the 49ers thought he'd be when they gave him a five-year, $170 million contract extension.
Grant Cohn|
Jan 5, 2025; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa (97) takes a selfie for a fan prior to the game against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matt Kartozian-Imagn Images
Jan 5, 2025; Glendale, Arizona, USA; San Francisco 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa (97) takes a selfie for a fan prior to the game against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matt Kartozian-Imagn Images | Matt Kartozian-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

Nick Bosa still is a good player. He's just not as good as the 49ers thought he'd be when they gave him a five-year, $170 million contract extension.

This season, Bosa had nine sacks, which would be great if he weren't making $34 million per year. His teammate, Leonard Floyd, had 8.5 sacks this season and the 49ers paid him just $12.5 million. Which means Bosa's production is replaceable and he might be worth more to the 49ers in a trade than on the field.

But it doesn't seem like the 49ers can trade Bosa this year. If they trade him before June 1, they won't save any cap space. In fact, they'll take on $72.8 million in dead cap.

But if the 49ers were to trade Bosa in 2026, they would save nearly $12.9 million in cap space. That's because his cap number will be an astronomical $42 million that year and he'll have no guaranteed money left on his deal.

If Bosa gets his usual 9 or 10 sacks in 2025 and the 49ers try to trade him in 2026, they might still be able to get a first-round pick for him despite his relatively modest production assuming he doesn't suffer a serious injury. He missed three games this season with an oblique injury and missed almost the entire 2020 season with a torn ACL.

The 49ers are an old, slow, injury-prone, expensive team. They need to get younger, faster, healthier and cheaper. Trading Bosa next year could help them accomplish that goal.

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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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