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49ers Create $18 Million in Cap Space with Post June 1 Release of Arik Armstead

Now the 49ers have more than $25 million in cap space for 2024, which gives them options.

Grant Cohn

Feb 5, 2024; Las Vegas, NV, USA; San Francisco 49ers defensive end Arik Armstead (91) talks to the media during Super Bowl LVIII Opening Night at Allegiant Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Lucas Peltier-USA TODAY Sports
Feb 5, 2024; Las Vegas, NV, USA; San Francisco 49ers defensive end Arik Armstead (91) talks to the media during Super Bowl LVIII Opening Night at Allegiant Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Lucas Peltier-USA TODAY Sports / Lucas Peltier-USA TODAY Sports
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Technically, the 49ers released Arik Armstead months ago.

But the transaction didn't become official until June 2, because releasing him after June 1 created $18 million in salary cap space for 2024. And that's not an insignificant amount.

Now the 49ers have more than $25 million in cap space for 2024, which gives them options. They could decide to reward Christian McCaffrey a big raise after his outstanding season in which he won the Offensive Player of the Year Award and finished third in the MVP voting -- one spot ahead of Brock Purdy.

The 49ers also could decide to reward Brandon Aiyuk with an extension that's worth more than $30 million per season, which seems to be the going rate for elite wide receivers these days.

These are moves that would make sense given the 49ers have stated they're all-in to win a Super Bowl this upcoming season.

But the 49ers might be fiscally conservative instead and save this cap space so they can roll it over to 2025 when they are expected to give Brock Purdy a contract extension that will be worth roughly $55 million per season, which will make him the highest-paid player in franchise history and one of the highest-paid players in the NFL.

If you look at the 49ers' moves so far this offseason, it seems likely they'll take the fiscally conservative route, considering they asked Arik Armstead to take a gigantic pay cut before they ultimately released him. And instead of signing big stars like last year when they added Javon Hargrave, the 49ers mostly added depth pieces and players on one- or two-year deals.

Stay tuned.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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