The San Francisco 49ers have restructured the contracts of both tight end George Kittle and offensive lineman Trent Williams to clear $23.224 million and get under the cap, according to ESPN's Field Yates.
Effective today at 4 PM ET, the NFL's Top 51 cap space rule went away for the season.
Many teams created cap space through contract restructures:
49ers George Kittle/Trent Williams: $23.224M
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) September 6, 2023
Ravens Marlon Humphrey: $7.536M
Seahawks Jamal Adams: $6.613M
Bucs: Shaq Barrett:…
After 4 P.M. ET today, season cap rules started to apply as the Top-51 rule was lifted, and teams had to get under the $224.8 million cap limit for the 2023 season.
The news came around the same time as the 49ers extending defensive end Nick Bosa, who earned a five-year, $170 million extension—the largest contract for a defensive player in NFL history.
However, as the move wasn't official ahead of the 4 P.M. deadline, it appears that the 49ers needed to make other moves to clear cap space, which they've been doing with several injury settlements for players on season-ending Injured Reserve(IR), such as safety Tayler Hawkins and kicker Zane Gonzalez.
Kittle was already scheduled to count $19.842 million against the cap in 2024, while Williams was scheduled to count $28.01 million against the cap.
Now, those numbers will likely increase, as each player's cap hit will decrease in 2023 to create the necessary cap space that the 49ers need to remain cap-compliant to begin the season.