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49ers Restructure Javon Hargrave's Contract, Likely to Release Him

The 49ers would be smart to release Hargrave. He was a horrible signing in the first place.

Grant Cohn

Nov 23, 2023; Seattle, Washington, USA; San Francisco 49ers defensive tackle Javon Hargrave (98) celebrates after a sack against the Seattle Seahawks during the second quarter at Lumen Field. Mandatory Credit: Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images
Nov 23, 2023; Seattle, Washington, USA; San Francisco 49ers defensive tackle Javon Hargrave (98) celebrates after a sack against the Seattle Seahawks during the second quarter at Lumen Field. Mandatory Credit: Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images / Joe Nicholson-Imagn Images
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The 49ers have too many old player who haven't lived up to their bloated contracts. This offseason, it seems the 49ers will cut at least one of them.

Javon Hargrave recently restructured his contract with the 49ers, according to OverTheCap.com. This restructure will allow the 49ers to release Hargrave with a post-June-1 designation and free up lots of cap space for 2025.

"Per a league source, the 49ers recently restructured the contract of Javon Hargrave for 2025 and 2026 in what looks to be a set up to allow for a post June 1 release next year," writes Over The Cap's Jason Fitzgerald. "The 49ers reduced Hargrave's base salary from $19.9 million to $2.1 million, dropping Hargrave's salary cap number from $28.105 million to $10.305 million in the process. The original cost to cut Hargrave would have been either $24.86 million on the cap or $28.105 million during free agency if using the June 1. This will allow the team to designate Hargrave as a post June 1 release, count for just $10.3 million on the cap during free agency and then have it drop to and have his cap number count for $8.6 million in 2025 if Hargrave is still hurt and defer $17.485 million to 2026."

First, the 49ers would be smart to release Hargrave. He was a horrible signing in the first place.

But I don't think making him a post-June-1 cut is the smartest move. Deferring more than $17 million in dead cap space to 2026 is not ideal. Just take the full dead cap hit in 2025 and move on.

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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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