From theAthletic:
How the 49ers misplayed the Nick Bosa situation and why it's time to break all precedents
There are realistic boundaries for what the 49ers can pay Bosa. They have a stacked roster full of players with large cap hits or soon-to-be-large cap hits. The front office has continued to acquire excellent players even through the cap squeeze, which only tightens everything. Smart teams negotiate hard, even with their best players, because every cap dollar saved can be used elsewhere. And the 49ers have certainly negotiated hard over the years, mostly without causing rancor or distrust. The proof is in the roster.
But even if Bosa is asking for the moon, stars and a few extra galaxies, I guarantee there would be three or four teams raising their hands to pay it — and trade the 49ers a ton of draft picks — if the 49ers decide they won’t meet Bosa’s price. That’s what happened with the 49ers and DeForest Buckner in the 2020 offseason and the
Colts agreed to the trade and a new contract for Buckner in about 20 seconds. And the 49ers don’t want to be the kind of team that has to do this twice.
The 49ers want to be a team that wins Super Bowls, and Jed York wants to be known as the owner who is willing to pay what it takes to do that. York has paid extravagantly for this roster. So it would be silly to draw the line — after paying Deebo and blowing apart the tight-end market for
George Kittle and topping the market for
Trent Williams and adding McCaffrey and trading away
Trey Lance because a win-now team can’t take the time to develop a young QB, even as a third-stringer — at a new Bosa deal.
If paying Bosa what he wants — say, guaranteeing $120 million, which would be $46 million more than the 49ers have previously guaranteed any player (
Jimmy Garoppolo got $74 million in guarantees in his 2018 deal) — breaks the 49ers’ moderate precedent for non-QBs and sets up a line of players demanding larger guarantees, so what? You can reset the precedent with them after the Bosa Exception. That’s the way it goes when you’re chasing a Super Bowl and Bosa isn’t budging.
If it takes Shanahan and Lynch telling York or executive vice president Paraag Marathe that it’s time to stand down on this one, that should’ve happened a few weeks ago. If it means the 49ers might have to shed two or three big contracts in the near future for cap reasons, that’s just the way it goes when the
NFL Defensive Player of the Year is holding out. If York has to go deeper into his coffers than he wants, well, the 49ers make enormous profits every year. If things have to get uncomfortable for the 49ers, that’s actually how they should’ve approached this in the first place.
This probably always was going to be a nervous deal for the 49ers. Maybe a bit of a scary deal. Certainly an unprecedented one. But York, Lynch and Shanahan shouldn’t be surprised by any of this. This is the business they’re in.
And if the cost of keeping Nick Bosa is too much, what’s the point of all this, anyway?
The 49ers are guilty of feeling too comfortable about Bosa, too serene about his commitment to stay in shape and too complacent overall.
theathletic.com
