Re-doing 2020 (e.g. a few terrible decisions that killed the 49ers)

Originally posted by JustinNiner:
Yep we should have:
- Extended Buckner
- Franchised and trade Armstead
- Let Ward walk. Start Moore.
- restructure or release Ford
- Trade JimmyG back to Patriots
- Sign Tom Brady
- Trade for Gronk
- Trade for Jamal Adams
- Sign Clowney

Trading for Adams would have been a disaster. Imagine giving up our 1st round pick for Adams and then having all these injuries derailing our season, only to finish near the bottom of the league and not have that 1st round pick? Oh and to top it off, having to pay him $20+ Million in the offseason to keep him. Adams was not going to help us at all this season with the amount of injuries we had. And we lose our next 2 1st round picks including next years that could be a top 5-10 pick. That would be grounds for Lynch being fired.

Dumbest thread ever.

1-Not signing Tom Brady when Shanahan wasn´t convinced about Garoppolo. In that case we´d have a QB than can stay healthy and at 43 is better than Jimmy.

2-Extending Jimmie Ward spending 9.5M per year leaving Tarvarius Moore on the bench.....what´s the plan for Moore?

3-Drafting an interior D-lineman (another one) in the 1st round with Tristan Wirfs available which forced us to trade for Trent Williams and now we´re forced to give him a huge extension.

4-Ignoring the C thinking that Ben Garland would be healthy the entire season.

Wow some guys are so insecure when someone wants to talk about the mistakes the FO has made

Originally posted by Monsterniner:
1-Not signing Tom Brady when Shanahan wasn´t convinced about Garoppolo. In that case we´d have a QB than can stay healthy and at 43 is better than Jimmy.

2-Extending Jimmie Ward spending 9.5M per year leaving Tarvarius Moore on the bench.....what´s the plan for Moore?

3-Drafting an interior D-lineman (another one) in the 1st round with Tristan Wirfs available which forced us to trade for Trent Williams and now we´re forced to give him a huge extension.

4-Ignoring the C thinking that Ben Garland would be healthy the entire season.

Wow some guys are so insecure when someone wants to talk about the mistakes the FO has made

Brady wouldn't be here longer than 2yrs, then in 2yrs we'd be in rebuild mode.

Ward getting $9.5M a yr was a mistake

Wirfs never made sense, he was a RT, not a LT, plus Trent is still a top 5 LT, he's well worth the money to re-sign, I'd rather have an All Pro LT than a rookie or 2nd yr player protecting the QB.

There weren't many good C prospects, who were we supposed to get, we weren't picking Ruiz in the 1st, he wasn't falling to our 2nd 1st rd pick, plus Aiyuk was the right pick.

All of this is hindsight, again, some of the moves people suggested weren't possible cap wise.

Originally posted by AB81Rules:
Brady wouldn't be here longer than 2yrs, then in 2yrs we'd be in rebuild mode.

Ward getting $9.5M a yr was a mistake

Wirfs never made sense, he was a RT, not a LT, plus Trent is still a top 5 LT, he's well worth the money to re-sign, I'd rather have an All Pro LT than a rookie or 2nd yr player protecting the QB.

There weren't many good C prospects, who were we supposed to get, we weren't picking Ruiz in the 1st, he wasn't falling to our 2nd 1st rd pick, plus Aiyuk was the right pick.

All of this is hindsight, again, some of the moves people suggested weren't possible cap wise.

I don´t care.

Originally posted by Monsterniner:

Originally posted by AB81Rules:
Brady wouldn't be here longer than 2yrs, then in 2yrs we'd be in rebuild mode.

Ward getting $9.5M a yr was a mistake

Wirfs never made sense, he was a RT, not a LT, plus Trent is still a top 5 LT, he's well worth the money to re-sign, I'd rather have an All Pro LT than a rookie or 2nd yr player protecting the QB.

There weren't many good C prospects, who were we supposed to get, we weren't picking Ruiz in the 1st, he wasn't falling to our 2nd 1st rd pick, plus Aiyuk was the right pick.

All of this is hindsight, again, some of the moves people suggested weren't possible cap wise.

I don´t care.

Ok? These moves would have made no sense, I'd rather have Williams over Wirfs, plus Kinlaw will be a beast, and Aiyuk is a stud already. People acting like we could have signed or traded for Brady, DeFo, Gronk, Adams, Clowney, and still have cap room, when it wasn't possible.

It's so easy to say woulda, shoulda, coulda. The Niners knew there was no way they could afford both Buckner & Armstead. They traded Buckner then used the #13 (actually #14 after the trade) to get Kinlaw. The problem some of you have is you're not being patient with Javon...that's despite the fact many analysts have said Kinlaw's ahead of where Buck was his rookie season. This guy's going to be a beast...you'll just have give him time to develop. As for Armstead, he's playing with mostly reserve DL this season. It's practically impossible to play at the level he did last year without Buckner, Ford and Bosa. Watch Kinlaw next season when Bosa and potentially Ford are back...ditto Armstead. The chance to get Trent Williams was too good to pass up. Despite not playing in 2019 or having any kind of off-season regimen, he's still playing at a pretty high level. Getting him after losing Staley was a great move. Without a doubt, there will be some changes coming...Jimmy's likely not going to be the QB next year...that can be a $24M cap savings. If they do part ways with Ford, that's in the neighborhood of $17M cap savings. Another potential cut could be Richburg...who's shown he's a good player when healthy, but his health has been mostly bad. Interior OL is an off-season priority, or should be, anyway. What I'm saying is there's ample opportunities to right the ship fairly quickly. I have faith Lynch will find the players Coach wants/needs. Not every move any GM makes bears fruit...but I do think Lynch has hit on a pretty high percentage. What I'd say to doubters is watch what he does to overcome some of the moves that haven't worked out as envisioned. That's the real test of any GM.

How about this analysis, 4 quadrillion injuries derailed the season.

Originally posted by mike86:

One of the most prominent clichés in life and sports, especially, is that hindsight is 20/20. The Niners thought they were making sound decisions after coming up just short in the SuperBowl. Midway through the 2020 season however a combination of bad luck (errr historically bad luck with injuries) and bad decisions are costing this team dearly. The problem is bad decisions in personnel matters aren't one-time taxes, they impose costs on the team for many years to come and I'm afraid the 49ers front office made several cataclysmic manuevers that will be very hard to recover from.

It's not a good use of time to stew over these poor choices and replay what-might-have been scenarios, but it could all be so so different now.

Let's replay what the 49ers did in the spring of 2020. To me, it ultimately comes down to one central decision...

Faced with the choice to resign their budding Pro Bowl DT, Deforest Buckner, the team's most consistent player and leader on defense, or spread that money around to several positions, the 49ers fooled themselves.

Buckner is NOT Aaron Donald, he's not even quite in Chris Jones territory, but he is a top 5 DT with a non-stop motor, leadership skills who NEVER misses time to injury. Simply put, there are almost no players who can match his level of availability, productivity and leadership. What would it have taken for the 49ers to keep him? I suspect an extension for 4 years at $80M would've done it.

Now this decision would've invariably had downstream consequences. Almost assuredly the 49ers would have needed to let Jimmie Ward walk in FA. More likely than not, they would have had to franchise and then trade Arik Armstead.

OR, they could have just cut Dee Ford. The 49ers gambled on Ford and when he played the 49ers pass rush was historic. Yes, they sacrificed a late 2nd round pick but that was a sunk cost. Keeping a DE on the downside of his career who hasn't had played more than two entire seasons ever on the roster at $18M per year made NO SENSE. And yet, to save face, the 49ers gambled. They believed that a healthy* Ford + Bosa + Armstead would be enough. Maybe they could've been right, but by what we're seeing now they were woefully wrong.

Now the 49ers are saddled with 3 terrible contracts. Jimmie Ward is a middling FS at best. Dee Ford may likely never see the field again. Armstead I still believe is a talented player, but he better be your 2nd or 3rd best DL, not your go-to guy (which he is right now).

The 49ers combined cap hit for these three players will be $44.2M in 2021, representing more than a QUARTER of the projected cap. It gets worse, in 2022, these cap numbers climb to $53.2M.

The 49ers paid these players like stars. They are not stars. They are all flawed players who, when everything lines up just so, can play at close to an elite level. The real star, however, was DeForest Buckner and the 49ers thought they could save $2-3M per year by signing Armstead and using those incremental dollars to keep Jimmie Ward. BRUTAL.

Now what could / should have they done?

At very least, they should have NEVER restructured Dee Ford's deal to convert his 2021 base salary into a bonus. That way they could've at least gotten out of his contract after this year w/ no financial ramifications. Whoops...

What they really should have done was trade Dee Ford after the season for a 5th or 6th round pick and move on from his salary.

Then, they should have then signed Buckner to a 4 year $80M extension, letting him play this year on his 5th year option.

The savings from trading Ford should, hypothetically, allowed the 49ers to keep Armstead OR Jimmie Ward in 2020, if not both.

So, the 49ers could have have Franchised Arik Armstead and then tried to sign him to a longer term deal OR traded him for a 2nd Round Pick in the draft.

IF, the 49ers traded Armstead, they could have resigned Jimmie Ward walk but the right move would have been to let him walk in FA and received a 3rd or 4th round compensatory pick in this year's draft.

If Ward was let go and Armstead was traded, the 49ers could have moved up in the 2nd Round to S Antoine Winfield Jr. to become the starting FS for this team.

Had they done this, the 49ers defensive nucleus going into 2021 would be Buckner, Bosa, Warner and Winfield. That's ELITE talent at every level.

They would also have MUCH more financial flexibility to resign Trent Williams AND Fred Warner.

Instead, this team is less talented and much more financially strapped.

These were EGREGIOUS decisions that at least put John Lynch's job into question. Instead he got rewarded with a five year extension...

And they let Emmanuel Sanders go, thus Jimmy G regressed as a QB.

Originally posted by PhillyNiner:
Dumbest thread ever.

this post killed the 49ers. redo it!

Originally posted by miked1978:

Oh look hindsight is 20/20 imagine that!!!

If we traded Ford and he played for another team healthy you'd be making this post about how dumb it was to trade him.

If we didn't trade Buckner and if he'd had another dud year like he did last year you'd be pissed.

Buckner didn't have a dud year, he ate up double teams and anchored a top defensive line making his teammates better. Bosa thrived with him.

Most of you had no cue T-Moore would look so solid. GTFO

Originally posted by genus49:

Originally posted by TheWooLick:

Originally posted by genus49:

Hindsight is 20/20. Glad you agreed. Rest of the post wasn't needed.

Trading Buckner and keeping Armstead was an obvious huge downgrade.

Yes however it wasn't Buckner for Armstead or even Buckner for Armstead and Ward.

We got Kinlaw out of the trade and retained Armstead, Ward and numerous other players we wouldn't be able to afford had we signed Buckner instead.

Team just went to the SB and wanted to retain as much of their starting D as possible without killing their cap flexibility.

Now people see the results of this season and suddenly the move was awful at the time. It wasn't. It was a tough move to swallow because we all knew Buckner was a great person and player but if you take your heart out of it and use your head the move made sense.

We were strong at IDL
We saw our defenses with Buckner and no Bosa/Ford(wasn't great results)

Why throw Aaron Donald like money at Buckner when you don't think he makes your defense dominant with his presence?

Colts could afford him. Smart move for them. We had some tough decisions to make. We made it. Now it remains to be seen how it looks long term.

Right now people b***hing about Armstead and Ward need to remember both of them combined this year make $13 million less than Buckner this season.

If people want to b***h wait til next year when at least AA and Ward's numbers jump and Buckner's drop a bit.

Buckner made the defense dominant last year.

Originally posted by TheWooLick:

Originally posted by genus49:

Originally posted by TheWooLick:

Originally posted by genus49:
Hindsight is 20/20. Glad you agreed. Rest of the post wasn't needed.

Trading Buckner and keeping Armstead was an obvious huge downgrade.

Yes however it wasn't Buckner for Armstead or even Buckner for Armstead and Ward.

We got Kinlaw out of the trade and retained Armstead, Ward and numerous other players we wouldn't be able to afford had we signed Buckner instead.

Team just went to the SB and wanted to retain as much of their starting D as possible without killing their cap flexibility.

Now people see the results of this season and suddenly the move was awful at the time. It wasn't. It was a tough move to swallow because we all knew Buckner was a great person and player but if you take your heart out of it and use your head the move made sense.

We were strong at IDL
We saw our defenses with Buckner and no Bosa/Ford(wasn't great results)

Why throw Aaron Donald like money at Buckner when you don't think he makes your defense dominant with his presence?

Colts could afford him. Smart move for them. We had some tough decisions to make. We made it. Now it remains to be seen how it looks long term.

Right now people b***hing about Armstead and Ward need to remember both of them combined this year make $13 million less than Buckner this season.

If people want to b***h wait til next year when at least AA and Ward's numbers jump and Buckner's drop a bit.

Buckner/ but mostly Bosa made the defense dominant last year.

*Fixed

Originally posted by AB81Rules:
As for the OP.

DeFo again costs $23.378M

Ward costs $3,906,250
AA $6M
Cutting Dee would have cleared $9,465,625 if Dee was cut(Ford had a $15,865,625 cap number), or the $9,554,991 if Dee was redone.

That's $19,371,875 if Dee was cut, or $19,461,241 if Dee was redone.

Even if we got DeFo to take just the $12.378M in 2020, we'd only would have saved $7,083,241 if Dee was redone, or $6,993,875 if Dee was cut.

Plus we would need cap room to have signed Garland, Hyder, Blair, difference for trading for Williams, plus the fact we redid both Dee and Tomlinson just to have cap room, so this offseason plan wasn't doable. Plus we used $3M to extend Kittle.