Roger Goodell's focus on potential NFL rule change could force the 49ers to dramatically pivot future team-building strategy

Few teams in recent years have pushed more of their future debt into “void years”, which effectively serve as placeholder years for bonus money on the back end of contracts, than San Francisco.

The 49ers and use of void years

It’s hard to blame John Lynch for leaning into the trend based on how close the 49ers have been to that championship breakthrough over the past five years. With multiple near-misses deep in the playoffs, the tone of every offseason until 2025 has been some variation of a “few pieces away” psychology.

It encouraged the 49ers to maintain the nucleus of the team, offer contract extensions to central pieces and try to find the right splash player to put San Francisco over the top. As revisionist history will now point out, there was no breakthrough coming with this model. And now, even despite the 49ers’ efforts to offload some major pieces of their deferred cap commitments by pivoting away from players like Deebo Samuel (who hits the 49ers with a $34 million dead cap charge after his trade to Washington), San Francisco is still among the NFL’s most invested teams in void years.

Moving on from Samuel is a good start for the 49ers to break down some of their deferred debt and position themselves to be more flexible under their next cycle. Having Brock Purdy under contract will be a central piece of the financial puzzle and there's not a lot of flexibility with deferred debt. But the 49ers still have more than a dozen players with at least one void year present on their current contracts. They'll either require contract extensions to bury those debts into, or the Niners will be back to eating cap space in 2026 and beyond as they continue to try to wipe the books. 

With negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement looming in the years ahead, there’s no imminent change necessary here for John Lynch and company. But it is worth noting that how the 49ers handled the back half of their most recent competitive window may not be an available style of contract management in the future if Goodell and the owners have their way.