The San Francisco 49ers have locked up their quarterback of the future, and Paraag Marathe is saying the team has around $63 million in cap space at the moment. They’ve taken the biggest cap hit in year one, which means they will have that much more flexibility in the subsequent years. Suffice to say, money is not a problem.
Couple that with great weather and a potential franchise quarterback, and the 49ers could prove a popular destination in free agency. General manager John Lynch was asked about the team’s free agency situation, and he had a perfect line.
“It’s 75 degrees and sunny out, we’ve got this guy [Jimmy Garoppolo] — who wouldn’t want to be here?”
Lynch talked about wanting to be the destination everyone wants to be, and one year into the ShanaLynch regime, it’s hard not to see the development. The team needs to build on it in year two, but heading into the upcoming free agency period, it’s not hard to see the 49ers being a choice destination.
Lynch coined his own phrase for the 49ers planned approach to free agency. He said the organization will be “aggressively prudent.” That seems like an oxymoron, but it makes sense. You want to add significant talent, but you’re not going to go crazy with it. If the right opportunities are there, they will aggressive pursue them. But they will not spend money just to spend money if they are not sure they are getting the right kind of talent.
That seems logical, but plenty of teams have gone crazy and made some bad contract decisions just because they had the room to get aggressive. The 49ers got aggressive last offseason, but they’ve ensured deals give them early outs.