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Nick Bosa Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

Bosa contract exposes 49ers to Rams-like salary-cap issues down the road

By Michael Gallagher | Last updated 9/6/23

Just because you can spend the money doesn’t mean you should. Just ask the Los Angeles Rams.

The team’s aggressive pursuit of a Super Bowl championship led to massive contracts for quarterback Matthew Stafford, receiver Cooper Kupp, cornerback Jalen Ramsey and defensive tackle Aaron Donald.

And while the team got creative by backloading certain deals and restructuring player’s contracts here and there, there’s only so many cap gymnastics one can do before it finally catches up. That's why the Rams paid $26.6M in dead cap in 2022 and a hefty $74.8M in dead cap space in 2023 after shedding several bloated contracts, including those of Ramsey, receiver Allen Robinson, defensive lineman Leonard Floyd and linebacker Bobby Wagner, per Over the Cap.

While Nick Bosa’s five-year, $170M deal with $122.5M guaranteed was a necessary evil for the San Francisco 49ers (Bosa has the most sacks and second-most pressures over the last two seasons), the team may find itself in similar cap peril as the 2023 Rams a few years down the line.

This 49ers' front office has an excellent track record of paying players top-line money to get deals done. They might be the first NFL regime ever to pay out 6 different position-record contracts (7 if count that Juszczyk has signed twice).

And until it's demonstrated otherwise,…
— David Lombardi (@LombardiHimself) September 6, 2023

San Francisco now has the highest-paid defensive end (Bosa, $34M per season), running back (Christian McCaffrey, $16.01M) and fullback (Kyle Juszczyk, $5.4M), plus the second-highest paid left tackle (Trent Williams, $23.01M) and the third-highest paid tight end (George Kittle, $15M) and linebacker (Fred Warner, $19.04M).

The 49ers maintained all offseason that they budgeted for Bosa’s contract this year, and that’s true. They are cap compliant even after signing the 25-year-old Defensive Player of the Year to his mega-extension.

#49ers saved $23M in restructures with George Kittle and Trent Williams, per @FieldYates.

This could mean that Nick Bosa’s deal is front-loaded or they’ve opened up a ton of cap room to make some in-season moves for 2023.
— Akash Anavarathan (@akashanav) September 6, 2023

Their real problems start in 2024, when they are projected to be $14.6M over the cap, per Spotrac, with nine players carrying a cap hit of $14M or more. And the 49ers are locked into all of those contracts because every one of them carries a pre-June 1 dead cap penalty of at least $8.5M or more, and only McCaffrey and cornerback Charvarius Ward have a dead cap penalty below $5M post-June 1.

If San Francisco needs to create cap space at any point, it’ll likely copy the Rams model — backload new contracts so they have smaller cap hits at the beginning and larger ones at the end of the deal, restructure existing deals, convert salaries into signing bonuses and renegotiate the terms of existing deals. But those solutions only just kick the can down the road, so to speak, before they finally have to make some hard decisions like the Rams did this year. That's why they had 14 rookies make their 53-man roster, which is the second-youngest in the NFL (25.5 years), and they’re projected to pick in the top 10 next year.

The silver lining for the 49ers, however, is that unlike the Rams, they still have their first-round picks to build around younger, cheaper players if their hands are tied by the salary cap. Los Angeles hasn’t picked in the first round of the NFL Draft since taking Jared Goff No. 1 overall in 2016. The team traded a combined seven first-rounders to land Goff, Stafford, Ramsey and two additional draft picks.

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