Must keep for 2017

[clyde21]

Here's who I think we must keep for 2017 based on age, talent, system fit and contract -

Joe Staley
Josh Garnett
Trent Brown
Zane Beadles
Carlos Hyde
Mike Davis
Bruce Ellington
Garrett Celek
Vance McDonald (depending on contract)
Arik Armstead
DeForest Buckner
Quentin Dial
Ronald Blair
Aaron Lynch
Navorro Bowman
Tank Carradine
Dontae Johnson
Jaq Tartt
Jimmie Ward
Will Redmond
Antoine Bethea

[RedneckNiner]

Here's who I think we must keep for 2017 based on age, talent, system fit and contract -

Joe Staley - agree unless a good trade offer
Josh Garnett
Trent Brown
Zane Beadles meh he needs to be a backup
Carlos Hyde
Mike Davis
Bruce Ellington
Garrett Celek
Vance McDonald-if he signs cheap
Arik Armstead
DeForest Buckner
Quentin Dial
Ronald Blair
Aaron Lynch
Navorro Bowman
Tank Carradine buh bye bust- i had such high hopes
Dontae Johnson
Jaq Tartt
Jimmie Ward
Will Redmond
Antoine Bethea trade bait its Tarts time

I would add Rashard Robinson to that list.
The Niners are a bad team and realistically they are 2 - 3 years from being fixed. As such if they can get anything trade wise for Staley, Bethea, Brooks, Torrey or any other veterans they should jump on it. They need a great draft and supplement that with som quality free agents. I wanted Trevathian last year...there will be some pieces available spend the money.

[clyde21]

Yes - forgot about Robinson. For sure.

[thesack12]

Yeah, Robinson needs to be on the list no doubt.

IMO Draughan is better than Mike Davis, so I'd rather keep him. However, it shouldn't be too hard to find an upgrade over both.

Carradine, McDonald, and Dial will all be coming off their rookie contracts. I'm perfectly fine with letting all of them walk. If they have to keep one, Dial would be the guy for me. He seems like he can be a serviceable rotation player. I want no part of Carradine, and would only want Vance back on a 1 year show me type contract or a very low cost 2 year contract, with the second year being a team option.

Joe Staley will be 33 when next season starts. If Frisco has a rookie QB, I would definitely keep him as he would be a great asset to a help develop a green QB. I would also keep him if they bring in someone like Garropolo. If the QB is going to be another veteran, I would look to trade Staley because his effectiveness will be on the decline by the time the team becomes relevant.

I was never a fan of the Torrey Smith signing, because he's always been a one trick pony and is getting paid #1 WR money. His value has never been lower than it is now and he's not a cut candidate due to his contract. So he will be back.

Beadles isn't a keeper for me. His cap hit is low enough to where he could be a cut candidate. But, his contract isn't to expensive so if they keep him, its whatever.

I'd bring back Kilore, because he's ok and super cheap. Both Kerley and Ray Ray Armstrong will be free agents and should be able to be resigned cost effectively, if so I'd bring both of them back. I would also bring back Eric Rogers, just because the talent is so thin at WR, he is semi intriguing and might actually crack the rotation. None of these guys are "must keeps" for me though.

Really, its pretty sad that is the list of the cream of the crop. Honestly, I'm not overly attached to anybody on that list. I love Staley and Bowman, but Joe getting old and Bow has suffered a couple nasty injuries. Hyde, Robinson, Brown, Lynch (if he can stay clean) are really the only guys where, I'm like let's go. It obviously makes sense to keep guys like Armstead, Buckner, Garnett but for me that's more so them being young unproven high draft picks with upside than me being excited about them as players.

[CalamityX12]

Bethea would be axe off that list for me... add Robinson naturally and can't argue... oooooo

I would keep Reid still... don't give up on him...

[thesack12]

For me, keeping Reid depends on his price. His fifth year option is pretty salty, and his value and on field performance has been on the decline for awhile now. The head injuries are also a concern to factor into his long term outlook.

Considering the team is flush with cap space, I would think they pick up his 5th year option and re-evaluate in 2017.

If Bethea can't be traded, I'd think he would be back for better or worse.

[wartyOne]

I think Bowman is done, frankly. He never seemed to recover from the ACL to his pre-injury days. Add an Achilles on top of that, and he's going to be two steps slower when he returns in a year and a half.

[RedneckNiner]

I think Bowman is not as done as people think. He has lost a step but he still plays well above average at his position. You can't judge him in a vaccuum. He has no defensive line in front of him... The other ILBs are utterly horrible so hes pretty much out there on his own. If the niners could get the defensive line to hold up a bit and found even an average ILB to play next to him you'd see that its only one step. If the Niners had put out 24 million over 4 years for someone like Trevathion it would be a whole different story. You can't only judge him in a vaccuum. He had Willis and even Borland next to him he was great. With a defensive line that could hold the point of attack Bowman could be beastly again. But the DLine gets dominated and its exposing everything else. Buckner and Armstead so far have shown flashes but little else. Purell gets pushed aside like a rag doll Noone requires a double team so opposing offenses can block most everyone.

[49er4life1979]

I think Bowman is done, frankly. He never seemed to recover from the ACL to his pre-injury days. Add an Achilles on top of that, and he's going to be two steps slower when he returns in a year and a half.

Bowman actually played very well last year as he led the NFL in tackles. What was missing however was his sideline to sideline speed, which normally takes two years to get back.

[CalamityX12]

Bowman has made great strides to recover. For me, he looked a lot better than i imagined. He'll be fine.

What he needs is help from the DL as well as a hard hitting ILB next to him....

[49er4life1979]

Bowman has made great strides to recover. For me, he looked a lot better than i imagined. He'll be fine.

What he needs is help from the DL as well as a hard hitting ILB next to him....

Exactly. A NT is priority. That is where run stopping starts.

[Ray_Dogg]

The team will have over $100M in cap space if Kaep opts out. They can keep all these turds.

[thesack12]

The team will have over $100M in cap space if Kaep opts out. They can keep all these turds.

Not sure where you are getting those numbers, as over the cap has them at $45.5 mil and spotrac has them at $37.9 in cap space next season.

http://overthecap.com/salary-cap-space/

http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/cap/2017/

So yeah, the projected figures have a wide range depending on where you look. Regardless of what the actual number is, your point remains that they will be sitting on a mountain on available funds.

Free agency isn't the ideal way to form the core of a rebuilding team, but having sizable cap space is surely is an asset. Personally, I am leaning towards a pretty big house cleaning of guys Baalke has brought in.

[Pattersonca65]

The team will have over $100M in cap space if Kaep opts out. They can keep all these turds.

Not sure where you are getting those numbers, as over the cap has them at $45.5 mil and spotrac has them at $37.9 in cap space next season.

http://overthecap.com/salary-cap-space/

http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/cap/2017/

So yeah, the projected figures have a wide range depending on where you look. Regardless of what the actual number is, your point remains that they will be sitting on a mountain on available funds.

Free agency isn't the ideal way to form the core of a rebuilding team, but having sizable cap space is surely is an asset. Personally, I am leaning towards a pretty big house cleaning of guys Baalke has brought in.

Yea, there are very few of them I am impressed with at the moment and a lot of them I don't think the team would miss much. There is a whole lot of house cleaning that may need to be done in the near future

[Ray_Dogg]

The team will have over $100M in cap space if Kaep opts out. They can keep all these turds.

Not sure where you are getting those numbers, as over the cap has them at $45.5 mil and spotrac has them at $37.9 in cap space next season.

http://overthecap.com/salary-cap-space/

http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/cap/2017/

So yeah, the projected figures have a wide range depending on where you look. Regardless of what the actual number is, your point remains that they will be sitting on a mountain on available funds.

Free agency isn't the ideal way to form the core of a rebuilding team, but having sizable cap space is surely is an asset. Personally, I am leaning towards a pretty big house cleaning of guys Baalke has brought in.

Rollover amount and Kaep deduction. Gonna be north of $100M. Wanna say you can't go three off-seasons in a row without beating the floor? Something like that?

http://ninerswire.usatoday.com/2016/10/19/buccaneers-roster-construction-offers-ideas-49ers-could-mirror/
"Free agency will be a big factor as well as the 49ers will have somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 million in cap space in the coming spring. They’ll be able to use that to plug some of their many roster holes."

The best in the biz in regards to our cap:
http://www.ninersnation.com/pages/49ers-salary-cap-2017
Currently over $90M with Kaep still counting.

[CalamityX12]

i think some fan compensation for stress and trauma should be calculated into the cap space.....

[thesack12]

The team will have over $100M in cap space if Kaep opts out. They can keep all these turds.

Not sure where you are getting those numbers, as over the cap has them at $45.5 mil and spotrac has them at $37.9 in cap space next season.

http://overthecap.com/salary-cap-space/

http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/cap/2017/

So yeah, the projected figures have a wide range depending on where you look. Regardless of what the actual number is, your point remains that they will be sitting on a mountain on available funds.

Free agency isn't the ideal way to form the core of a rebuilding team, but having sizable cap space is surely is an asset. Personally, I am leaning towards a pretty big house cleaning of guys Baalke has brought in.

Rollover amount and Kaep deduction. Gonna be north of $100M. Wanna say you can't go three off-seasons in a row without beating the floor? Something like that?

http://ninerswire.usatoday.com/2016/10/19/buccaneers-roster-construction-offers-ideas-49ers-could-mirror/
"Free agency will be a big factor as well as the 49ers will have somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 million in cap space in the coming spring. They’ll be able to use that to plug some of their many roster holes."

The best in the biz in regards to our cap:
http://www.ninersnation.com/pages/49ers-salary-cap-2017
Currently over $90M with Kaep still counting.

Ahh, nice. Thanks for the link, I'll definitely be referring to there in the future.

With the mountain of cap space, it will give the GM (hopefully new GM) plenty of options. Its actually one of the select few assets the team has that might make the job attractive to quality candidates.

[thesack12]

Not sure where you are getting those numbers, as over the cap has them at $45.5 mil and spotrac has them at $37.9 in cap space next season.

http://overthecap.com/salary-cap-space/

http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/cap/2017/

So yeah, the projected figures have a wide range depending on where you look. Regardless of what the actual number is, your point remains that they will be sitting on a mountain on available funds.

Free agency isn't the ideal way to form the core of a rebuilding team, but having sizable cap space is surely is an asset. Personally, I am leaning towards a pretty big house cleaning of guys Baalke has brought in.

Yea, there are very few of them I am impressed with at the moment and a lot of them I don't think the team would miss much. There is a whole lot of house cleaning that may need to be done in the near future

Yep, there aren't too many players on the roster that I would advocate keeping.

The good news is, the team will be armed with immense cap space. Considering the current state of the team its probably not a great strategy to go out and sign a lot of expensive free agents to long term contracts.

However, they will have to spend a lot of money due to the CBA stipulations. That being the case a good course of action may be to just cut some of these guys like Bethea, Beadles, Brooks etc and take the dead money cap hit. That would help to expedite being able to hit the reset button and helping rid the team of the Baalke stain.

Another strategy I would look to is, shopping Joe Staley and offering to pay all of his salary if they can get say a 2nd round pick for him. Again, the team has to spend the money anyways so they should definitely try to maximize the value the cap space can provide.

In order to get the salary floor there might be some short term contracts with high annual value offered to guys who don't necessarily deserve the money. Thats one way a team can get up to the floor without any long term ramifications.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any players I would be itching to offer extensions. I think the Bowman extension last offseason was an avenue of the team needing to spend some money. Along these line, the more I think about it I think its virtually a lock that they pick up Eric Reid's 5th year option.

In any event, leaving behind a good cap situation is one thing Baalke will provide as a parting gift. It would be MUCH worse if the roster was this bad + being in salary cap hell.

[wartyOne]

I think Bowman is done, frankly. He never seemed to recover from the ACL to his pre-injury days. Add an Achilles on top of that, and he's going to be two steps slower when he returns in a year and a half.

Bowman actually played very well last year as he led the NFL in tackles. What was missing however was his sideline to sideline speed, which normally takes two years to get back.

I would argue he led the league in tackles because the 9ers defense was on the field an inordinate amount of time due to the incompetence of the offense, not because he fully recovered from the ACL. But that injury combined with an Achilles rupture isn't something favored by the odds. http://lermagazine.com/article/return-to-football-after-achilles-tendon-rupture According to this link, 36% of players never return to the NFL after an Achilles rupture, and that doesn't include the ACL damage he sustained in 2014.

Of the 31 players who sustained an Achilles tendon rupture, 21 (64%) returned to play in the NFL at an average of 11 months after injury. In the three seasons following their return, those 21 players saw significant decreases in games played and power ratings compared to the three seasons preceding the injury.

At this stage in his career, and for the price tag, I can't imagine he's in the team's long term plans anymore. He's 28 now. IF he's able to return next year, he'll be 29 and still rehabbing this injury at the start of training camp.

It's a shame, too. He was a monster before the ACL.

[wco81]

Yeah exactly. ACL followed by Achilles.

They need to draft ILBs. In fact they should look at signing some in free agency too.

The biggest leak now is being gashed on the ground every game.