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To be clear, it’s a lot. Plenty of money. Lots o’ pesto. But it’s not a straightforward six-year, $138.06 million deal. According to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, for Trent Williams, it’s really two separate three-year deals.
#49ers LT Trent Williams' six-year, $138.06 million deal is actually two deals: three years, $60.75 million to start, and a three-year, $77.31M option the club can exercise by April 1, 2023. If exercised, Williams' 2023 pay becomes mostly guaranteed. He gets $32.4M in Year 1.
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) March 18, 2021
The first is a three-year, $60.75 million deal, with a three-year option which can be exercised by April 1, 2023. Ignore that last sentence about Williams getting $32.4 million in year 1, because that’s not how it’s going to count on the cap.
Here’s the breakdown, per OverTheCap.
So that’s $8.23 million in year one, $14.12 million in year two and $26.27 million in year three.
That, folks, is a lot of cap freedom in the first two years. By next March, $5.05 million of Williams’ 2023 salary will be guaranteed, and if the team does opt to pick up his three-year option, it will guarantee an additional $10 million for that 2023 season.
What should you make of all this?
That the 49ers paid Williams what he’s worth, but for the first three years, it’s an average of roughly $20 million per season. After that, in 2023, they can part ways with Williams. If they did, it would be at a dead cap hit of $12 million, and would save $14.88 million in cap space.
Those numbers from 2024 through 2026 are astronomical, to be sure. But, the cap will rise substantially by that point and there is only $12 million in remaining fully guaranteed money at that point. So if the 49ers do pick up those last three years, they’re not picking up a deal they can’t get rid of. By 2024, they’ll have viable outs in Williams’ contract every single year.
But that’s only looking at the negative, that Williams isn’t worth bringing back. He will be an absolute steal in those first two years of the contract, and the 49ers can get creative if they need to in order to work around that third year.
What this deal shows is that Williams got his value and the 49ers locked up arguably the best left tackle in the NFL for at least three years, or up to six if that’s what they want. They have given themselves multiple ways to get out, and in the short term, there is myriad cap space available for them to remain competitive.