Fooch's update: Ian Rapoport is reporting the deal is 4 years for $40 million, with $20 million guaranteed.
The San Francisco 49ers will not have Sean Smith in their secondary this coming season. NFL Network reporter Rand Getlin tweeted that the free agent cornerback has agreed to a contract with the Oakland Raiders.
Terms are not yet known, but more than likely this deal will be similar to the deal Janoris Jenkins signed with the New York Giants. I would expect five or so years, and something along the lines of $60M-$65M. He joins a Raiders team that has added Bruce Irvin and Kelechi Osemele as potentially significant upgrades on each side of the ball.
As for the 49ers? Well, they had been rumored to be interested in Smith, with multiple reports suggesting they were pushing hard to try and get something done. We'll likely never know for certain how interested they are, but if the reports are true, this would be an embarrassing loss in the market. The 49ers have dominated the Bay Area market for most of the last 35 years. However, the Raiders are suddenly looking like the team on the rise, while the 49ers can't seem to get out of their own way for significant stretches.
Things might work out fine with Chip Kelly, but Trent Baalke is going to need to get some big hits in the draft. It is entirely possible the front office thought this free agent market was being overvalued, but Tim Kawakami made an excellent point.
You are either in the market or you're not. Don't brag about $60M in cap space if you're not going to go after the best free agents.
— Tim Kawakami (@timkawakami) March 10, 2016
The 49ers have not said they were going to go out and spend a bunch of money, but there have been multiple references to the team having a sizable amount of salary cap space this offseason. I get that things don't always work out with free agents, but it is still a little frustrating to see a team with this many holes sit idly by and not sign any free agents of note. Maybe this will all turn out fine, and the hand wringing will be for naught. But given how the last year and a half has gone, it's hard to give the team the benefit of the doubt.
Fooch's update: I will add that the other possibility if the 49ers were active in this negotiation is that Smith simply chose the Raiders over the 49ers. Not exactly a better look.