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Albert Breer: The 49ers Should Sign Justin Simmons

Simmons is 30 and probably wants no less than $15 million per season, which is why he's still a free agent.

Grant Cohn

Oct 12, 2023; Kansas City, Missouri, USA; Denver Broncos safety Justin Simmons (31) celebrates after making an interception against the Kansas City Chiefs during the first half at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports
Oct 12, 2023; Kansas City, Missouri, USA; Denver Broncos safety Justin Simmons (31) celebrates after making an interception against the Kansas City Chiefs during the first half at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports / Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports
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The 49ers currently have $31.4 million in salary cap space -- sixth most in the NFL -- and an elite safety remains unsigned.

Four-time All Pro safety Justin Simmons is a free agent, and Sports Illustrated's Albert Breer wants the 49ers to sign him.

"I love the idea of Justin Simmons in either the Vic Fangio–style of defense he’s played in for the Broncos since 2019, or in a Seattle Seahawks–type of defense," writes Breer. "That’s why I’d really love to see him as the center fielder in the Niners’ defense—which has historically played the Seattle three scheme, and also just brought aboard Brandon Staley (whom Simmons knows well) from the Fangio tree. Houston would be another fun fit for Simmons, for some of the same reasons."

Simmons is 30 and probably wants no less than $15 million per season, which is why he's still a free agent. The longer he waits, the cheaper he could become, considering there clearly isn't a robust market for his services. So the 49ers could wait until August to sign him if he's still available.

Or he simply could be out of the 49ers' price range, considering they're trying to extend Brandon Aiyuk's contract and signing Simmons would make extending Aiyuk even more difficult to do.

But the 49ers technically can afford Simmons and he would greatly improve a defense that fell off when All Pro safety Talanoa Hufanga went down with a torn ACL last season. It's unclear how good he'll be when he returns.

Unfortunately for Simmons, the 49ers historically don't spend big money on safeties, so I doubt he'll end up in San Francisco.

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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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