We didn’t spend one-second discussing quarterbacks on the first day of free agency. After a report came out that the 49ers could land former Chicago Bears quarterback Mitch Trubisky, NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo reported that the Niners are “strong contenders” to land former Cowboys QB Andy Dalton:
The market for Andy Dalton is active on the second day of negotiating. NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo reported the Chicago Bears “are in on” the former Dallas Cowboys quarterback and the San Francisco 49ers are a “strong contender” to land him. In his first season in Dallas, and away from the Cincinnati Bengals, Dalton started nine of 11 games played, completing 64.9 percent of his passes and throwing for 2,170 yards, 14 TDs and 8 INTs.
Trubisky is an effective rusher and has physical tools, but he wasn’t a good passer last season and still doesn’t seem to know where to go with the football.
Dalton is an upgrade over Trubisky, C.J. Beathard, and Nick Mullens, but that’s the extent of the compliments for Dalton. When you watched Dalton last season, he looked more like a backup QB than a starter, to me. Dalton would serve as Jimmy Garoppolo’s backup. As with any backup, the hope would be that Dalton doesn’t see the field for extensive action.
I’m curious to see what the league’s valuation for Dalton is. Over the Cap and Spotrac’s valuations have been way off for the edge rusher positions or any position that received top dollar on Monday. Ryan Fitzpatrick’s wasn’t too bad. OTC thought Fitzmagic would earn $8 million, and Washington paid him $10 million. But Washington paid him as if they’re expecting Fitzpatrick to play. If Dalton gets over $7 million, that’ll give us an idea of his expectations for 2021.
We’ll get into the 49ers cap situation later this morning. As for now, before counting Dee Ford’s restructure, the Niners have roughly 20.4 million in cap space.