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NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported that the 49ers restructured center Weston Richburg’s contract. Looking at Richburg’s contract, he has no more guaranteed money remaining. Richburg’s base salary for 2021 is $7.85 million, so that was the only place where the 49ers could have taken money from.
With the news of Weston Richburg's restructure, which is basically a pay cut, since the only way to save $6.875M is to cut his base down to $1.075M & eliminate his $100K workout bonus, I have the 49ers at $31,605,877 in cap room, before knowing Moseley's details.
— Jason Hurley/49ers 2021 Cap Room=$31,605,877 (@Jay_AB81) March 13, 2021
Rapoport said the move created $6.875 million in cap space. That means Richburg took a pay cut, as Jason mentions above. He also mentioned Richburg ends up retiring. If Richburg were to retire, the 49ers only lose the prorated bonus money from Richburg’s contract and would gain the rest of the money back.
Richburg's current prorated bonus is $6.9 million. Richburg’s remaining base salary on his contract is over $9.7 million. The 49ers would get the difference of $2.75 million in cap space after June 1 if Richburg were to retire.
Richburg’s restructured contract helps the team immediately as they can now use that extra cap space to retain their unrestricted free agents and potentially sign an additional free agent. We’ll update the article once more details on Richburg’s contract come out.