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There is a lot of time left in the 2020 season, and there will be no shortage of 49ers-related quarterback rumors. They’re too perfect a target, as a team which, despite myriad injuries, has kept an elite defense intact but simply has not received anywhere near good enough quarterback play.
One name that’s going to continue popping up: Matthew Stafford.
The 32-year-old has been woefully under-appreciated on a national scale his whole career, during which time he’s been a top-10 quarterback just about every year, but with some astonishingly poor teams around him. Despite a rib injury this year, he has a 22-9 TD-to-INT ratio, a 63.9 percent completion percentage, 3,522 passing yards, and one would-be game-winning pass that was dropped by rookie D’Andre Swift.
Before you can even talk about Stafford rumors, you have to recognize one thing: The Detroit Lions do not know who their general manager or head coach will be next year. To say anything regarding Stafford is a certainty, at this point, is false. He could stay, he could be traded, he could be cut (though that seems the least likely option). Without a leadership structure in place, no one knows what will happen.
Still, Robert Saleh is the odds-on favorite for the Lions job, and there could be a hell of a lot of back-scratching between San Francisco and Detroit.
Let’s say Saleh gets the Lions job. Or any head coaching job for that matter. If/when that happens, the 49ers will be due two compensatory third-round picks from the NFL. One in 2020, one in 2021.
That’s due to a new rule which rewards minority hiring. When teams lose minority coaches or executives to head coach or general manager roles, they get compensatory third-round picks for two straight years, starting this year.
We don’t know how the new leadership in Detroit will feel about Stafford, who is due $33 million in 2021 and $26 million in 2022. But we may have an idea how Stafford feels.
ESPN’s Adam Schefter, who joined Denver’s 1043 The Fan — after a report from former player Chad Brown said the Lions are looking to move on from Stafford — said he thinks the Lions will “be open to anything.”
But Stafford? Not so much.
“Knowing what I know, I don’t think he’s going to have the stomach to go through another rebuilding job,” Schefter said. “He might want to go on to play for a team that is ready to win right now, or closer to winning than that team, [Detroit], would appear to be. I think that’s an unsettled, fluid situation.”
So, what if all this aligns? The 49ers get a couple of third-round picks added to their arsenal and they want to move on from Jimmy Garoppolo. Saleh, now the coach in Detroit, or whoever is there, has to move on from Stafford, who desperately wants to be traded.
Leadership in Detroit wants at least a stop-gap quarterback, and to recoup something significant for Stafford, but might be struggling to get a first-round pick in a year the salary cap is just about certain to drop, and for an aging quarterback who, though undoubtedly elite, has battled through an astonishing number of injuries in his career. They also want most of his salary off the books, and can save $14 million next season by doing so.
There is a move to be made there. Here is one rough outline of it:
49ers get: Matthew Stafford
Lions get: Jimmy Garoppolo, 2021 second-round pick, 2022 third-round pick (compensatory from Saleh)
Now, this is an inexact science.
It might cost more, like a first or two seconds.
It could also cost less, like both the 21′ and 22′ third-rounders.
We’re not in those rooms, we don’t know who will be in charge of Detroit, and we don’t know what other offers they’ll be fielding, so gauging exactly how the value shakes out, especially when the 49ers paid a second for Garoppolo (and may not want to pay that if they’re sending him the other way), makes this equation tricky. We don’t know if Detroit actually wants to part with Stafford.
Another complicating factor is Garoppolo’s no-trade clause. He might simply refuse to go to Detroit, though if LaFleur and Saleh were there, he’d effectively be turning down a guaranteed starting job and $25.5 million in salary to elect for free agency in one of the worst players’ market in years.
More complicated than that is the fact that the Lions would have to eat a significant amount of dead money in a Stafford deal, which would be $19 million before June 1. They are perhaps in a worse cap situation than San Francisco, currently projected with $20 million less in space in 2021, according to OverTheCap.
The 49ers also have a very tight cap situation, but bringing in Stafford wouldn’t actually make it tighter, though it would get rid of the option for $24.1 million in cap savings they’d have but cutting Garoppolo. They’d only be taking on $20 million in Stafford’s salary in 2021 and $23 million in 2022 after Detroit is forced to eat his prorated bonus money.
Those draft picks, though, represent invaluable, cheap contracts potentially for the next four years. New regimes love to stockpile draft picks, and if Detroit is making its cap situation worse (though giving itself a completely free out in 2022), they may demand some high picks.
Maybe San Francisco just flat-out cuts Garoppolo and goes all out, or Detroit can’t maneuver its cap to acquire him, and the 49ers trade a first-rounder (and more?) or a combination of a second-rounders and other picks for Stafford.
But this trade gives whoever is in charge of Detroit next year some cover. You still have a competent quarterback, and if you want to blow the whole thing up the following year and cut Garoppolo, or draft a young quarterback to learn behind him, you can.
One clear question here is if Saleh, and whoever he brings with him or hires as his offensive coordinator (Matt LaFleur, the 49ers’ passing game coordinator, perhaps?), actually wants Garoppolo. Maybe they’ve seen enough to scare them off Garoppolo, which is a reasonable assessment.
But part of me thinks if it is someone like LaFleur, he’ll want someone who knows the system, and can at the very least, buy the organization time until they’ve found the future at the quarterback position.
Stafford wouldn’t actually be too expensive for the 49ers, and he immediately raises the team’s ceiling, and allows them to attack draft prospects to keep their Super Bowl window open.
Again, it’s tight, but there are avenues to create some cap space.
One thing Schefter also mentioned is that it’s a buyer’s market. The cap will be dropping, and more expensive veterans who are still capable but perhaps not what they once were, are likely to get cut.
This may allow for players to remain on the market longer than usual, giving San Francisco the option of using post-June 1 cuts. In a normal roster cut, whatever guaranteed money a player has in the future comes due immediately. But in a June 1 cut, only the money guaranteed in the current season is due, and the rest comes due the following year.
Here are the key cuts available to the 49ers:
- Jimmy Garoppolo: Saves $24.1 million
- Dee Ford: Saves $6.43 million
- Weston Richburg: Saves $4.89 million
- Robbie Gould: Saves $3.75 million
- Mark Nzeocha: Saves $1.6 million
But there are two, key potential post-June 1 cuts:
- Dee Ford: Saves $16 million
- Weston Richburg: Saves $8.35 million
Assuming the Stafford trade, which will cost the 49ers an additional $6.1 million in cap space, and they cut all four of Ford, Richburg, Gould and Nzeocha, they’d create an additional $16.67 million in cap space. If the 2021 salary cap is set at, say, $195 million, as ProFootballTalk reported is the rough expectation around the league, that would represent about $49 million in cap space. If the number is at $176 million, as OverTheCap lists, that would leave $30 million in space.
Expect $20 million for Trent Williams, about $3-4 million for rookies, and whatever is left to deal with an entire, expiring secondary, and probably some help on the edge. Oh, and a Fred Warner extension, too.
But if you made Richburg and Ford post-June 1 cuts, that cap space balloons to $62 million in cap space per the PFT projection, and $43 million under the OTC projection.
Whatever the 2021 salary cap is will dictate much of this, and the reason post June-1 cuts aren’t exceedingly common is that teams are limited to two of them, and that they take place while a key portion of team’s preseason is underway. It’s well after the first rush of free agency. But again, with that dropping cap, players may well be cheaper, and there may be more available for longer than usual.
The 49ers don’t need to trade Garoppolo to get Stafford, and maybe they turn out to not be interested him at all. But no interest? In a guy who has the 17th-most passing yards, 16th-most passing touchdowns and 21st overall passer rating in league history? That seems hard to believe.
Stafford-for-Garoppolo and free picks lets Shanahan avoid having to start from scratch, and gives Detroit an easy-out quarterback, who if nothing else, is a high floor stopgap.