The San Francisco 49ers are being docked a draft pick for an unusual reason.
The NFL announced Monday that the 49ers are being knocked down on the fourth round of the 2024 draft and will also lose their 2025 fifth-round pick. The league said it discovered an administrative error in the team’s payroll at the end of the 2022 league year.
The league stated that the 49ers never would have gone above the salary cap even if the numbers had been correctly calculated and that no attempt was being made to intentionally circumvent the cap. In other words, it was an honest accident, albeit one the NFL is still punishing the Niners for.
While seemingly minor, the 49ers have landed the likes of George Kittle, Dre Greenlaw, and Talanoa Hufanga in the fifth round of previous drafts. They no doubt would have preferred to keep that selection. The good news, however, is they’ll probably be able to make up for it in other ways.
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