ClutchPoints
Following a disappointing 2024 season, the San Francisco 49ers have an intriguing offseason ahead of them. With several lucrative contract extensions looming, the 49ers will prioritize salary management, forcing them to compile a list of cut candidates in the 2025 NFL offseason.
Despite a surplus of sizeable contracts on their roster, the 49ers enter the offseason with moderate cap space. They are projected to have over $40 million in space to work with in free agency, ranking near the middle of the league.
Still, with the roster moves general manager John Lynch has ahead of him, $40 million in cap space will evaporate with a single move. The 49ers have already begun negotiating with Brock Purdy, whose upcoming extension will likely make him one of the highest-paid quarterbacks in the league. The former Mr. Irrelevant is currently making just over $900,000 per year. The difference between his two contracts will hit San Francisco like a storm.
With some predicting Purdy’s annual salary will be north of $40 million, the 49ers are forced to make room for such a deal. They already owe Nick Bosa, Brandon Aiyuk, George Kittle, Fred Warner, Deommodore Lenoir, Deebo Samuel and others hefty paychecks over the next few years. Nobody doubts the legitimacy of those deals, but one team can only afford so much. Therefore, before Lynch can even send Purdy an offer, he has to move at least one of his high-priced veterans.
Just two years removed from an NFC championship, the 49ers will be among the most active teams in the 2025 NFL offseason.
With how his last two seasons have gone, Deebo Samuel has been involved in near-constant trade rumors. At the end of the year, Lynch told reporters he would not trade Samuel, but that does not give him any more job security. Samuel might not be traded, but despite his decorated tenure with the team, he is still one of the 49ers’ top cut candidates in the 2025 NFL offseason.
Two years into his current extension, Samuel has one year remaining on the three-year, $71.5 million contract he signed in 2022. Since he inked that deal, he has played some of the worst games of his career. Everything culminated with an injury-riddled, drop-filled 2024 campaign in which he posted a career-low 44.7 receiving yards per game. At 29, Samuel is owed over $20 million in his final year in 2025.
While his production was not encouraging, veteran Jauan Jennings and rookie Ricky Pearsall’s simultaneous emergence was even more detrimental to Samuel’s career. Despite playing all but two games in 2024, Samuel finishes just third on the team with 670 receiving yards despite top wideout Brandon Aiyuk missing practically the entire season. Of the 10 games he played with Pearsall, Samuel topped 50 receiving yards just three times.
It is too early to say that Samuel is behind Pearsall in the pecking order; he has seemingly fallen behind Jennings. Once Aiyuk returns in 2025, that would make him...
