The biggest NFL story to get right yesterday was that Lions are getting ready to change the defender Matthew Stafford. Immediately after the news came out, experts started putting together lists of the most likely Stafford suitors, and the 49ers are at the top of most of those lists.
In fact, Eric Branch of the San Francisco Chronicle expects the Niners to ask about Stafford, and Matt Maiocco of the NBC Sports Bay Area says the team is likely to make a decision quickly about whether to get involved in the bidding (Twitter link) The consensus seems to be that a first round choice plus additional draft compensation will be required to acquire Stafford, and it is unclear whether GM John Lynch is willing to give up that kind of capital.
Of course, the 49ers has Jimmy Garoppolo under contract until the 2022 season, but he has lost 23 games in the past three years, while Stafford has started all games in nine of the last 10 seasons. In addition, head coach Kyle ShanahanThe attack, filled with game and action passes, bootlegs and deep shots, appears to be a perfect fit for the Lions franchise icon.
Money would also not be an obstacle. Stafford will count only $ 20 million against the limit in 2021 – a rather modest sum for callers with a quality signal – while Garoppolo is scheduled to take a hit of $ 26.9 million. San Francisco would incur a mere $ 2.8 million in dead money when negotiating or releasing Garoppolo, so the club would really improve its capitalization situation and (probably) its defender game by acquiring Stafford.
Garoppolo has a no-deal clause written in his contract, but since he is unlikely to get a significant return on a deal at this point, negotiating it would not be a precedent condition for a Stafford deal. Matt Barrows of The Athletic wonders how much Stafford would be an improvement and whether that improvement will be enough to guarantee the resignation of 49ers’ overall selection 12, and that is a decision that Lynch & Co. will have to make in the coming weeks .
As of now, Lynch does not plan to use his choice of the main draft on a university pass, as Alex Didion of the NBC Sports Bay Area writes. So, if the team doesn’t acquire Stafford or some other veteran, it looks like Garoppolo will be the holder of the 49ers 2021, as Shanahan suggested last month.
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