Will the 49ers Re-Sign Jordan Mason this Offseason?

The 49ers might lose their leading rusher from this season in a couple months.
Sep 22, 2024; Inglewood, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Jordan Mason (24) runs the ball against the Los Angeles Rams during the first half at SoFi Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images
Sep 22, 2024; Inglewood, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers running back Jordan Mason (24) runs the ball against the Los Angeles Rams during the first half at SoFi Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images / Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images
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The 49ers might lose their leading rusher from this season in a couple months.

Jordan Mason is scheduled to be a restricted free agent and the 49ers might not re-sign him. And that's because last year they made Christian McCaffrey the highest-paid running back in the NFL plus they traded up to draft Isaac Guerendo. So they're invested at running back.

Meanwhile, Mason unquestionably was their best running back in 2024. He proved he can be a high-quality starter if given the opportunity. He's going to get a nice payday soon.

The 49ers could give him a second-round tender, which would mean that they would receive a second-round pick if a team were to sign Mason and the 49ers chose not to match the offer. But a second-round tender is $5.2 million, and another team might not want to pay Mason that much money for 2025, which means the 49ers could be stuck paying him that price tag. And that's probably too expensive for them.

So they most likely will give him a right-of-first-refusal tender, which costs $3.2 million. And then if a team makes Mason an offer, the 49ers can match it. And if they don't, the 49ers won't get anything in return. They'll simply lose their leading rusher from this season.

I'm guessing the 49ers will lose Mason and attempt to replace him with a running back in the upcoming draft. And that's good news for teams around the league that want Mason.

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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.