The San Francisco 49ers have agreed to an injury settlement with linebacker Jayson DiManche, and have waived him off injured reserve. There is no word on how many weeks worth of pay are in the settlement.
NFL salaries are generally not guaranteed, but when a player is injured, a team cannot just cut him and pay him nothing. When a player is hurt in the course of practice or games, his team will end up paying him some or all of his salary in a given year. The two sides decided on how much time he would miss, and he will receive payment for that many weeks of his NFL salary.
If DiManche had remained on injured reserve all season, he would not have been able to sign with another team, regardless of the severity of the injury. With the settlement, he will now become a free agent, allowed to sign anywhere else. If the 49ers want to bring him back at some point, they have to wait the length of the settlement plus an additional three weeks. So, if they paid him for three weeks of salary, they would have to wait six weeks into the season before they could re-sign him.
The 49ers IR list currently includes linebacker Jimmie Gilbert, safety Chanceller James, wide receiver BJ Johnson, linebacker Donavin Newsom, and linebacker Malcolm Smith. Gilbert, James, and Johnson all suffered torn ACLs, and Smith suffered a torn pectoral muscle. Those are true season-ending injuries, and so there will be no settlement. Newsom suffered a concussion on a collision with James (unrelated to James’ injury). There is no word on the status of his symptoms or if the team will try and negotiate an injury settlement.