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The 49ers Restructed Fred Warner's Contract

Before the 49ers restructured his contract, Warner's cap hit was going to be $24.5 million. Now, it's $13.8 million, which means the 49ers created more than $10 million in salary cap space with this move.

Grant Cohn

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The 49ers have more salary cap space than people realize.

Last week, they restructured Fred Warner's contract, according to Matt Barrows of The Athletic. Which means they converted some or all of his base salary into a signing bonus and made his cap hit considerably lower for 2024 and higher in the future.

Before the 49ers restructured his contract, Warner's cap hit was going to be $24.5 million. Now, it's $13.8 million, which means the 49ers created more than $10 million in salary cap space with this move.

Warner is signed through 2026, and he has no guaranteed salary left in his contract, so the 49ers could have asked him to take a pay cut, as they asked Arik Armstead and Kyle Juszczyk to take pay cuts. But Warner doesn't merit a pay cut. He's one of the 49ers' best players, he's extremely consistent and he has missed only one game in his career. He's the kind of player a team rewards.

The 49ers aren't necessarily done restructuring contracts. If they want more cap space, they could restructure or extend cornerback Charvarius Ward and free up $9 million. They also could restructure or extend George Kittle and free up $9 million. They also could restructure or extend Deebo Samuel and free up more than $15 million, but I doubt they'll touch his contract, because it's unclear if he's a good long term investment.

The point is the 49ers have lots of ways they can create cap space to make a big move in free agency if that's what they want to do.

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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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