2024 Super Bowl Takeaways: After LVIII Loss, the 49ers Face More Roster Questions

After the shock of Sunday night wears off, San Francisco needs to take a hard look at its all-star cast thanks to a huge cap hit hovering down the line.

Two-hundred-and-eighty-five games up. Two-hundred-and-eighty-games down. The offseason is almost here and so are the Super Bowl LVIII takeaways …

When the devastation of Sunday night’s result wears off, the San Francisco 49ers will have some decisions to make. And that’s largely because—to hold their all-star cast together—they’ve had to kick the can down the road on a bunch of contracts.

The best way to illustrate the looming issue they’ll have to address: Despite having eight players on contracts worth $15 million per year or more, the highest cap number on the team in 2023 was $12.58 million, and there were only three players with cap hits in eight figures. That means money is getting pushed into the future, and eventually that bill comes due.

The question will be how and when San Francisco wants to pay it.

The eight aforementioned players combine for about $198 million in cap charges next year. Add on Brandon Aiyuk’s fully guaranteed fifth-year option and that jumps to about $212 million. The cap next year is expected to land between $240 million and $245 million, which means the 49ers would have to fill the other 44 spots on their roster for between $28 million and $33 million, which would be impossible.

Of course, they could do a bunch of restructures and kick the can down the road again. The problem with that is nine of their cap figures for 2025 add up to more than $194 million, and two of those are dummy years to bury cap charges on high-end contracts.

This season was Purdy’s second in the league :: Kyle Terada/USA TODAY Sports

So, eventually, even if it happens gradually, the Band-Aid will have to be somewhat torn off, particularly if the 49ers wind up paying Brock Purdy (in 2025, when he’s first eligible for a new deal or ’26 when his rookie deal expires), or young guys such as Aiyuk who have played their way into consideration for big second contracts.

The thing is, all of the players we’re talking about are still really good. Trent Williams is 35 but borderline irreplaceable. Arik Armstead is 30 and still a big-time leader on the team. George Kittle is 30, but he remains one the best in the league at his position. Christian McCaffrey’s not done, even with a lot of mileage at 27. The rest (Nick Bosa, Deebo Samuel, Fred Warner, Charvarius Ward) are 28 or younger and still in the heart of their primes.

A month after the 49ers last went to the Super Bowl, in 2020, they were faced with similar issues, and GM John Lynch wound up making the tough decision to trade DeForest Buckner to the Colts. He didn’t like to have to do it, but he knew he had to. And it’s not wild to think he, Kyle Shanahan and EVP of football operations Paraag Marathe will soon find themselves reckoning with another decision or two just like that next month.

Now, as long as that group is in charge, I’d say the 49ers are in good shape and should have more chances to get the one thing that’s eluded Shanahan, Lynch and Marathe.

It's just that it might look a little different the next time around.

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I had an interesting conversation with Arthur Blank about Bill Belichick—and it could open up more opportunity for the former New England Patriots coach in 2025. And I say that because the Atlanta Falcons owner’s words, after being the only owner to formally interview Belichick in January, fly in the face of the way a lot of teams viewed the 71-year-old as a candidate.

I simply asked Blank why Belichick was the wrong fit for Atlanta.

Blank’s Falcons made headlines as a contender for Belichick in January :: Jamie Sabau/USA TODAY Sports

He responded by going narrative hunting.

“It wasn’t that he was the wrong fit,” Blank says. “We had 14 candidates. We always wanted him. All the issues and questions about Bill relative to power structure were completely unfounded and untrue and based on nothing. All of my discussions with him, he was nothing but collaborative, inclusive, anxious to work with personnel and scouting alongside him. He did his referencing on our organization and felt very comfortable working with them. It really had nothing to do with any of that.

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“I think Bill will coach again. I don’t know. But the energy’s there, the passion’s there. We just felt for a variety of reasons when we weighed Raheem [Morris] vs. everybody, that he was just the best choice for us.”

We’ve been here a few times in the past few months, but it’s worth repeating: A lot of folks figured the problem Belichick would have is the perception that he’d come in and walk all over everyone in a new organization. For a lot of teams, letting that happen might mean a lot of people leaving or getting pushed out. With Belichick turning 72 in April, there was a fair question of whether you’d want to blow things up for a short-term fix, even if that fix happens to be the greatest coach of all time.

But if Belichick is willing to adapt to a team’s existing structure, or delegate like, say, Andy Reid did when he went from the Philadelphia Eagles to the Kansas City Chiefs? Then, teams looking for coaches are having a very different conversation around Belichick.

At any rate, while Belichick is not going to the Falcons, Blank is glad to have interviewed him twice and explored the possibility of hiring him.

“I learned a lot,” Blank says. “You’re talking to somebody who’s a historian of the NFL, 49 years being a coach in the NFL, 24 years in one organization, six Super Bowl successes. You learn about all the things that they did, or he did, to have that kind of success and how the league has changed and players, what’s not changed and what his requirements for success are going forward. I think he’ll be a fine candidate for somebody else.

“It just wasn’t the best fit for us.”

[Chiefs win Super Bowl 2024: Latest news and analysis]

And as for the guy who was, well, there was a familiarity to Morris that positioned him perfectly to outpace the 13 candidates who didn’t get the job.

“The experience we had with him in Atlanta was great. It was six years, obviously a lot of success during that time, didn’t end that way, but a lot of success during that time,” Blank says. “Spent a lot of time on offense, defense, great leader. Coaches loved him, players loved him. What I saw in the three years he was in L.A. is I think he grew a lot professionally from his relationship with coach [Sean] McVay, their coaching style, their coaching structure, organizationally, as well as working with Les [Snead] and the level of collaboration that I think’s unique between Les and Sean and building their roster.

“I think he learned skills that weren’t fully developed when he left us in Atlanta. I could see that during the interview process, just thinking about how to build a coaching staff that would be sustainable if we were losing coaches in the future because of success. I’m excited about him.”

He swears he would have been excited about Belichick, too.

Maybe someone else will be in 2025, given what Blank said.

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Chip Kelly’s flirtations with NFL coordinator jobs, and subsequent decision to leave a head-coaching job at UCLA to be offensive coordinator at Ohio State should serve as a powerful warning shot for those who run college football. Kelly, now 60 years old, loved his Bruins players. He loved living in Manhattan Beach. He saw the same potential that everyone else has for a place that’s in a recruiting hotbed, and should recruit itself.

So that a school such as UCLA loses a coach like Kelly is a bad sign for the state of the sport, at that particular level. As was the departure of Jeff Hafley from Boston College to be defensive coordinator of the Green Bay Packers; Hafley is a young, energetic, promising coach who built strong connections with his players and really, really cared about the sport.

College football will keep seeing these sorts of things if change doesn’t come soon.

The root of both leaving their posts was the same. Each of them just wanted to coach football. And while there’s always been a political nature to those jobs, the percentage of the work that is just coaching has shrunk at a breakneck rate over the past couple of years. The head coach of a college football program may now be more fundraiser, alumni-relations director, and salary-cap manager than they are someone-with-a-whistle-around-their-neck.

What’s made it worse is the competitive imbalances that NIL and transfer portal have created for schools such as BC and UCLA, both of which are good programs that don’t have the horsepower that the bluebloods in their conferences do. Which is why guys such as Hafley and Kelly would take pay cuts to go be assistants elsewhere.

For Hafley, the escape hatch came thanks to his having worked for Kyle Shanahan and Robert Saleh, close friends of Matt LaFleur. For Kelly, it was even more stark—taking interviews for a number of NFL jobs before going to work for someone, Ryan Day, who played quarterback for him at New Hampshire. Kelly interviewed with the Seattle Seahawks, was on Dan Quinn’s list with the Washington Commanders, and interviewed twice for the Las Vegas Raiders job (first on the Friday before the conference title games, then again on the Tuesday after that weekend).

And, yes, this is an NFL column. But all of this has an impact at the professional level, in that a healthy environment in college football—with stars being developed, marketed and prepared for life in the league—is always good for the league.

The problem, as we’ve discussed here in the past, is that the old NCAA president never did anything to prepare college sports for this. Now, all of this is on Mark Emmert’s replacement.

So, with all due respect, Charlie Baker, do something about it.

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Speaking of college coaches bailing for the pros, the Seahawks did well to land Alabama offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb. And I use the term “Alabama offensive coordinator” loosely, because he just got there less than a month ago, coming from the University of Washington. Now Grubb is returning to the city in which he was just working.

Anyway, it’s a really daring and sharp hire by new Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald.

You can start with Grubb’s background and how, over his 21-year career, he’s been a running backs, receivers, offensive line and quarterbacks coach, eventually becoming an offensive coordinator at four different levels of the game (high school, NAIA, mid-major FBS, and major college football). He’s built a scheme that’s had the NFL’s attention and respect for a few years now. (I can remember hearing about it when he was at Fresno State.)

Nick Saban had enough respect for Grubb to try and poach him last year after Alabama lost Bill O’Brien to the Patriots. And Washington’s continued resurgence this fall led to more and more heat on Grubb’s name as a candidate for NFL play-calling.

“Good hire,” says one AFC exec, who’s out a lot on the college-scouting trail. “He knows how to create mismatches. He’ll spread you out, and throw the ball, and run it into light boxes.”

“He’s a really good, genuine dude,” says one AFC college scouting director. “Very bright, very personable. All of the players love him … not just the offense, but the defense too. He worked his way up the ranks, mostly following [Kalen] DeBoer but he’s been successful everywhere he’s been. He does a good job adjusting his scheme to fit the personnel’s skill sets. Offense has a lot of shifts and motions to help the QB out and make it difficult on defenses.

“He’s treated all of my scouts with incredible respect—mostly because he’d do anything to help his players, but also because he’s such a high-class human being. It’s not uncommon for him to spend 30 minute to an hour after practice with one random area scout from a given team, even if he had no preexisting relationship with that guy. He may have a bunch more important obligations to get too, but he makes that scout feel like they are the most important person in that moment. It speaks to the kind of guy he is and how much he wants to help his players—just a phenomenal person and football coach.”

Now, is there risk? Sure. The hashmarks are tighter and the athletes are bigger, longer and faster in the NFL, so there’ll be an adjustment for Grubb. And while he’s done a great job with the past two quarterbacks he had in college—Jake Haener at Fresno State and Michael Penix Jr. at Washington—obviously, getting the most out of one in the pros is a little different, too.

Either way, the hire got the attention of plenty of Grubb’s admirers in the league. The Seahawks should be fun to watch.

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The Mike Vrabel–Dan Campbell–DeMeco Ryans effect is moving. I’ve said all year that as much as people focus on the trend to hire young offensive play-callers as head coaches, the trend of former players getting, and excelling, in top jobs has become one to watch.

Antonio Pierce certainly reaped the benefits of it, with Mark Davis’s willingness to trust him with the Raiders’ future, even after Pierce had coached just two years at the NFL level. Jerod Mayo is another one who was fast-tracked, as he’s now the Patriots head coach after just five years of coaching at any level (all five, of course, came in the NFL).

And now, we’re seeing it at the bottom of staffs, too. Mayo himself just hired the guy who played next to him for a few years, in Dont’a Hightower, to come aboard as the Patriots’ new inside linebackers coach. Meanwhile, Jim Harbaugh hired his old 49ers captain, NaVorro Bowman, to be his linebackers coach with the Los Angeles Chargers. Bowman has one year of coaching experience (he coached linebackers at Maryland last year). Hightower has none.

But both have precisely what Vrabel and Campbell and Ryans did, and that’s a boatload of playing experience, plus leadership qualities that were evident and obvious to everyone who crossed paths with them as players. It won’t be hard for either of them to get the attention of the players inhabiting those linebacker rooms, and both could climb quickly in the league.

My guess is also that there’ll be a lot more of this coming in the next few years—if for no other reason than the engagement a prominent former player can get from players—in an era where that ability is far from automatic for most coaches.

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Minnesota Vikings receiver Justin Jefferson delivered the quote of the week on Radio Row. That quote, from an appearance on Sirius XM with Adam Schein, didn’t leave much gray area as to where the star stands heading into a contract year.

“I want to break the bank and I want to be a part of an organization that wants me and to really give me what I deserve,” Jefferson told Schein. “I feel like eventually the Vikings will do what they need to do to have me in the building, but I don’t really know at this very moment. Only time will tell. I feel like I have the right people in my circle to negotiate and do what’s right. I feel like this whole process of how we handled things and how we went accordingly with the season and the contract stuff, I feel like we did a great job with it.”

That last part—how Jefferson and his camp handled the 2024 season—might be the key.

Jefferson missed time with a hamstring injury :: Brad Rempel/USA TODAY Sports

Jefferson missed seven games, so his numbers weren’t otherworldly. But he still averaged over 100 yards and nearly seven catches per game and, after battling injury, finished the season healthy and with a 192-yard day against the division champion Lions.

He also, by waiting, gained something else: leverage. Had the Vikings gotten a contract done last year, they’d have done it with two years left on his existing deal—which usually makes a player more amenable to compromising and allows for the team to manage the cap damage more effectively. Waiting a year, on the other hand, means the player takes on an extra season of injury risk, plus is a year closer to the team having to put a tag on him.

So now, Jefferson can justifiably ask for the moon and stars. The nine biggest receiver contracts out there—Tyreek Hill, Davante Adams, Cooper Kupp, A.J. Brown, Stefon Diggs, DK Metcalf, Deebo Samuel, Terry McLaurin and DJ Moore—were all done two years ago. That means you add two years of inflation to the aforementioned leverage, plus the fact that Nick Bosa and Aaron Donald have broken the glass ceiling for (true) $30 million contracts for position players and, well, the Vikings have a lot of work to do.

In short, it was a risk for Jefferson to play last year without an extension. And now he’s coming for his reward.

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How the NFL rewards its second tier of quarterbacks this offseason will be fascinating. Last year, we saw real pushback in this area. Yes, Derek Carr and Jimmy Garoppolo got nice deals, but they weren’t budget-busters, and teams such as the Commanders, Falcons and Tampa Bay Buccaneers decided to punt altogether on the high end of the market.

A year later, the coaches from two of those three teams were fired, with the third having won a low-risk gamble on Baker Mayfield, who made $4 million in base pay last year.

So what does that mean this offseason? It’ll be interesting to see.

Signing Kirk Cousins or Ryan Tannehill, of course, won’t set a team up for the next five years, but it could work to stabilize a coach’s situation and buy time to find a long-term answer, if said team doesn’t like what’ll be available to it in the draft. If you’re the Miami Dolphins, even with injury questions (that subsided a bit this year), paying a bit of tax is worth it for what Tua Tagovailoa can do for you, in giving you a good answer at the position, right? And if Mayfield doesn’t get tagged in Tampa Bay, surely, he’d bring value to someone.

What’s really fascinating about this is how it has swung back and forth, from an environment where the highest paid quarterback was simply the last starter to get paid, to last year’s relatively tepid market that led to some franchise upheaval.

We’ll see if it swings back again.

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The Kadarius Toney saga is a good reminder for draft time: generally, red flags on a player aren’t a simple invention of them being put through the pre-draft ringer, or some conspiracy to make someone fall into a team’s lap. These teams have a lot of the same information on players. That information is built over years, through the team’s network of sources at the college level and vetting by the security departments.

They aren’t guessing.

So, yes, there are stories of these sorts of players turning it around as pros. But more often than not, you get what you asked for. That Toney wore out his welcome this fast in two different places is no more a surprise to scouts than it was that 2020 first-rounders Damon Arnette, Mekhi Becton and Isaiah Wilson haven’t kept it together as pros. Everyone knew. Teams gambled on their talent. The result was predictable.

Anyway, with draft season coming, it’s smart to follow things with this in mind. Because, in the words of my old buddy Troy Brown, “Money only makes a guy more of what he already is.”

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Speaking of Brown, I’m gonna go to bat for one of his old teammates here: Rodney Harrison should absolutely be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I’ll say that, first, while acknowledging what a tough job it is to vote on the Hall of Fame. I’ll also say it while congratulating a deserving class comprised of Dwight Freeney, Devin Hester, Andre Johnson, Julius Peppers, Patrick Willis, Randy Gradishar and Steve McMichael.

Now, five of those seven players are contemporaries of Harrison, or players that came in as his career was winding down. Throw Harrison in with them to make a group of six, and I’m not saying the former Charger and Patriot is the best of that cluster, but he certainly wouldn’t be on the bottom of the list, either.

At this point, I think two things are keeping Harrison out. First, it’s tough for safeties, and I get that. It took Steve Atwater, one of the very best at the position during my childhood, forever to get in. John Lynch had to wait a while as well. Darren Woodson is with Harrison on the outside looking in. The second thing is that Harrison only made All-Pro three times, which, I think, was tied to his reputation for playing the game on the edge of the rules, something that made him unpopular with opponents and their fans.

Harrison (right) played 15 years in the league / USA TODAY Sports

With all that established, Harrison was an elite player at his position over a long period of time, which, to me, should always be the top qualifier for induction. And I could go on here, but I figured it’d be better to bring in former Patriots exec Scott Pioli to make his case Sunday as the guy who signed Harrison in 2003.

“No matter what metrics you use, or film, he deserves to be in,” Pioli says. “Based on the other players that are in, I don’t know what the standard is anymore. If you want to use statistics, statistically, he’s better than other players that have been elected recently that played during the same time as he did. He’s only one of two players in the history of the game to have 30 sacks and 30 interceptions. He was the first one in NFL history to do it, and the only other person who’s done it is Ray Lewis.”

If we want to use statistics, you can find all kinds, such as how many more tackles Harrison had than John Lynch, in fewer games. With this whole notion, though, of Pro Bowls and All-Pro teams, here’s what we know: When a lot of past voting went on, it was more about popularity. When Rodney played, he was not popular amongst his opponents. Everyone that played with him, whether it was in San Diego or New England, loved the guy. In addition to statistics, he’s a champion, multiple times over.

“I don’t know what the standard needs to be. And here’s the other thing, before I was a decision maker, I was a pro scout and did pro personnel. I saw him as a player. I evaluated him all those years before we got him. I saw him relative to the league. I just don’t know what the standard is,” Pioli says.

“He embodied everything that we believed in. He fit in so perfectly because he was a leader. He was a hard worker. There were a lot of things that didn’t ever get to the \[coaches, front office] because he was one of the players that took care of it, along with a group of others. He mentored people. What did he mean? I can’t put it into words because there’s so many things. That’s the truth. What did he mean to us? He meant far too many things than we could stand here and describe.”

And to punctuate his point, Pioli sent along a slide he tweeted from a couple months ago.

As Pro Director, then head of Personnel w/ @Patriots I evaluated Rodney Harrison for 9-seasons when he was w/ the @chargers
His film & knowing him told me why we wanted to sign him at the #Patriots in '03
The film & these numbers remind me why he should be in the Hall of Fame pic.twitter.com/6slUF9sety

— Scott Pioli (@scottpioli51) December 9, 2023

So, yeah, I’m with Scott on this one. This shouldn’t be very hard.

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And we’ll wrap up the 2023 season with our quick-hitters. As a gift to all of you, our readers, I wanted to do something for everyone. So here’s one question for all 32 teams, in alphabetical order (by mascot), heading into the offseason.

• Will the San Francisco 49ers kick the can down the road cap-wise another year, to keep their galaxy of stars in the Bay Area sky?

• Is the question of whether the Chicago Bears take Caleb Williams really one that goes both ways, in an Eli Manning sort of way?

• Will the Cincinnati Bengals start the 2024 season with Tee Higgins and Ja’Marr Chase on new contracts?

• How do the Buffalo Bills assess their core, with Stefon Diggs at 30, and Tre’Davious White, Matt Milano, and Dion Dawkins within a year of that milestone?

• Do the Denver Broncos go all-in to get Sean Payton’s next quarterback in this year’s draft?

• How will the Cleveland Browns’ revamped staff get more from Deshaun Watson?

• Where do the Tampa Bay Buccaneers draw the financial line with Mayfield?

• Will Marvin Harrison fall in the Arizona Cardinals’ laps?

• Is there a Frank Gore-like bellcow out there for Jim Harbaugh’s Los Angeles Chargers offense?

• Can the Kansas City Chiefs find a way to keep Chris Jones?

• With nearly $60 million to spend, how do the Indianapolis Colts leverage having Anthony Richardson on a rookie contract on the veteran market?

• Is it Drake Maye or Jayden Daniels (or a trade up) for the Washington Commanders?

• Can the Dallas Cowboys find the right price for Dak Prescott, with tagging him in 2025 pretty much impossible logistically due to his $60 million cap number?

• Will the Miami Dolphins re-sign Tagovailoa, and what would it mean for the rest of the roster?

• Is the Philadelphia Eagles‘ crew of young defenders (Jordan Davis, Nolan Smith, Nakobe Dean, Kelee Ringo, etc.) good enough for the team to shed some expensive vets?

• Which veteran quarterback will the Atlanta Falcons pursue?

• Will the New York Giants be in the quarterback market in the draft, with Daniel Jones only having one guaranteed year left on the deal he signed last year?

• After some tumult at the end of 2023, is a revamped Jacksonville Jaguars staff on the same page?

• Can the New York Jets get a tackle and Davante Adams?

• How do the scars of the blown 17-point lead in the NFC title game hit the Detroit Lions?

• Are the Green Bay Packers ready to pay Jordan Love at the top of the quarterback market?

• Can the Carolina Panthers attract veterans in free agency to create a better situation for Bryce Young?

• How do the New England Patriots handle having gaping holes at three premium positions (quarterback, receiver, tackle) on offense?

• Do the Las Vegas Raiders go all-in on their Adams-Maxx Crosby–Josh Jacobs–Kolton Miller core, and go get a veteran quarterback?

• Are the Los Angeles Rams, now with a clean cap and a full complement of picks (for the first time in nearly a decade) about to go back into offseason attack mode?

• Can the Baltimore Ravens, with Justin Madubuike and Patrick Queen among their free agents, keep the NFL’s best defense together?

• Do the New Orleans Saints work on finding Derek Carr’s eventual successor?

• Ditto for the Seattle Seahawks: With how Mike Macdonald sees Geno Smith still a question, does Seattle look at putting the next guy in place behind him?

• What sort of competition do the Pittsburgh Steelers bring in for Kenny Pickett?

• Can the Houston Texans super-charge their offense with a big name skill-position addition?

• Is Will Levis really the guy for Brian Callahan’s Tennessee Titans?

• And yes, a lot of these revolve on quarterbacks, so we’ll finish up with this: Will the Minnesota Vikings do what it takes to keep Kirk Cousins?