The San Francisco 49ers gained a little more salary-cap wiggle room on Friday after the fifth-year option for defensive tackle DeForest Buckner was adjusted from $14.36 million to $12.378 million. As noted in our previous article, the former is the value for a defensive end, while the latter is the value for a defensive tackle.
Why Buckner wasn't initially being labeled as a defensive tackle, when it comes to the value of his option, remains a mystery. He played significantly more snaps along the interior of the defensive line over the past two seasons than along the edge.
While most resources, like Spotrac and nearly every article from when the 49ers exercised the fifth-year option back in April of 2019, already had Buckner listed as counting at the lower figure against the salary cap, that wasn't the case everywhere.
RELATED 49ers' DeForest Buckner sees fifth-year option value adjusted from $14.4 million to $12.4 million
The 49ers, listed with nearly $13 million in salary-cap space before Friday, saw that number bumped up to nearly $15 million, according to David Lombardi of The Athletic.
This gave the 49ers a little bump of cap space on OTC. They're now at about $15 million, although I'm not sure why Buckner wasn't classified at this amount in the first place since he is indeed a DT. Can they further reduce the 2020 cap hit with long-term extension? We'll see. https://t.co/4XqBQhE1hc
— David Lombardi (@LombardiHimself) March 13, 2020
OverTheCap.com now lists the 49ers' salary-cap space at $14.7 million. Of course, that is assuming a per-team salary cap total of $200 million.
It may not seem like much of an increase in space, but San Francisco could get creative to grow that number further before the start of free agency next week. The team already added to its salary cap surplus by restructuring the deals of linebacker Kwon Alexander and center Weston Richburg, which got the team to the $13 million figure.
San Francisco could save more money by restructuring the deal of running back Jerick McKinnon. As Lombardi notes, the team could also see some savings if it gets a long-term deal with Buckner completed, pushing some of the salary cap impact to later years.
H/t to Patrick Tulini for the find and some of the reseach.