Raheem Mostert to Drop his Trade Request?

Will the 49ers reach a resolution soon with Raheem Mostert, who requested a trade?

Will the 49ers reach a resolution soon with Raheem Mostert, who requested a trade?

According to the NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, yes, a resolution could be imminent. But does Rapoport know the full story?

On Tuesday, he went on KNBR in San Francisco to explain his recent report that the 49ers recently granted Mostert a meeting to discuss his financial grievances. Mostert wants a raise because he has grossly outperformed his contract, but the 49ers won’t seem to give him more guaranteed money. He currently has zero guaranteed dollars left in his deal.

And yet, they met with Mostert anyway.

Here’s what Rapoport said about the meeting: “It seems like they're in a lot better place now than they were whenever the original message was delivered by his agent, Brett Tessler, about two weeks ago.”

Then Rapoport went into specifics: “I know that (Mostert) is someone they want to take care of and are willing to take care of in some form or fashion. I don't know if they're going to be able to do some sort of additional compensation, maybe it's incentives, something to better account for the kind of production that they believe he is going to have. But this is a really smart organization. They usually do the right thing. I would imagine they're going to be able to work something out, and this sort of trade request is going to, at some point, be something in the past.”

All due respect to Rapoport, but keep dreaming. Mostert would have dropped his trade request already if additional incentives would make him happy. Incentives don’t help a running back who’s part of a running back committee and never gets a full workload or even a start. The 49ers easily can suppress his stats, and did so last season.

Rapoport seems to have presented the 49ers’ side of the story. A story that creates the false impression that Mostert has lowered his demands, come to his senses, remembered he’s a team player, yada yada yada. A story that makes it seem a resolution is coming soon, when it might not be. A story that makes 49ers fans believe Mostert will be there on Day 1 of training camp and throughout the entire season, when he might hold out.

So if he does holds out, which he certainly could do, then he’ll seem unreasonable and all over the place. He’ll be the bad guy.

Here’s my interpretation of the meeting between Mostert and the 49ers:

Someone in the organization listened to Mostert to make him feel appreciated. But the 49ers did not give him the raise he wants, and now Rapoport says they probably won’t give him any extra guaranteed money.

It seems the 49ers simply are pressuring Mostert to drop his demands. And he still hasn’t dropped them.

So don’t be surprised if Mostert holds out. This story is not over.