IndyHawk":3bqrbytz said:
Maybe I'm talking out of my...I just don't see how the 49ers got all this cap room to resign Boldin..Any other key FA's they have and have enough to sign all these draft picks..Even more so if they traded up for a high$$$ draft pick...
Assuming the new cap projections are correct, they currently have 11 million in room. It's because of a few things:
1) 9ers fans have resigned themselves to losing Iupati and either one or both of Whitner and Brown, the same way the team lost Goldson, Walker, Francois, and Sopoaga last year (Hawks fans believing they won't have to lose their guys they'd rather keep are the same way 9ers fans were last year; 9ers fans are just a year farther along in cap hell and have learned to be more circumspect due to the reality of it).
2) That leaves Aldon, Kaepernick, and Crabtree as potential "keeps." Aldon will play out this year and get the fifth year team option for being a first rounder since the new CBA. Kaep will likely play out this year and get franchised next year, which makes sense over an extension right now both from a salary and development perspective. Crabtree will most likely be allowed to hit FA next year.
3) The 9ers will likely have three of their biggest salaries coming off the books (or being restructured) in the next 12 months: Carlos Rogers (in the next few months), Frank Gore, and Justin Smith (both FAs after next year). Smith will likely be restructured. Rogers and Gore are gone after this year and next year.
4) Boldin is a much more accomplished player than Tate, but he's 33 years old so he's cheaper. The Seahawks have a blessing that is really ONLY a problem in terms of the cap in that basically all of their real talent is just entering its prime or before its prime. From a talent perspective that's awesome, from a cap perspective it's awful. The 9ers have talent much more spread out across age distributions, which is very preferable from a cap perspective, but not as good from a talent perspective (oddly, due to the cap it almost ends up being a wash).
5) Due to the new CBA signing draft picks isn't cost-prohibitive anymore. The 9ers have been planning for all of this by stockpiling picks, which due to the new CBA are more valuable than they used to be, particularly for top picks (due to the salary scale) and first round picks (due to the 5th year team option).
Long story short, the 9ers can basically do what they want this year. They've been planning for the future to varied success (VERY successful so far in replacing Goldson Sopoaga/Francois, not very succesful so far in replacing Walker), but the real gut punch from the cap won't come until after this upcoming season, and even that might not be that big of a hit, given the age distribution of the roster (if there is to be a problem, it will more likely be a talent problem than a cap problem).
