Thanks to Tre9er for pointing this out, especially considering I read directly over this and made nothing of it the first time I went over, but in a recent article from ESPN's Mike Sando, it looks like a restructuring of Michael Lewis' contract took place.
According to Sando, he will be paid $1.7MM this season with another $400K in bonus money. As opposed to playing through 2012, those final two years were taken from his contract altogether and this is his last year (under contract) as a 49er.
Phil Barber just told me on Twitter that it seems pretty official and not at all a mental lapse, which is what I initially assumed (no offense to Mr. Sando, happens to the best of us). So with that, I'm fine with carrying on under the assumption that it's happened, even with the lack of discussion or reporting from other beat writers and the like. Make the jump for discussion on what this means.
Obviously, there were people clamoring for this. We figured that Lewis was overpaid, which is probably the case, and we also figured that the drafting of Taylor Mays, along with the slight emergence of Reggie Smith, made Lewis a little more expendable. I figured he'd be done after this upcoming season anyway, but could this mean that he's gone before then? One could argue that this restructuring is the only reason he's still with the team, which I'm inclined to agree with.
A lapse during a game or a strong game from the rookie Taylor Mays, and is Michael Lewis then someone the 49ers can shop around with a much more attractive contract or even cut ties with him altogether and not take a huge penalty by doing so. At the very least, I expect to see more and more of Taylor Mays as the season progresses - I imagine he'll be making a start or close to it on Thursday against the Chargers. Very interesting.