Team Building; 2021 Off-Season Personnel Decisions

I wanted to pose this simple question, if you're the FO, what do you do with this team? We have a ton of free agents, and bunch of guys who are injury prone and/or underperforming, and then we have potential coaching vacancies on the offensive and defensive sides of the ball. How do you shape the team for 2021 that gives us a best chance to win and still sustain success going forward? I'll lay out my own outline as an example of how I'd suggest responding to this post.

List of Free Agents: https://overthecap.com/free-agency/san-francisco-49ers/

UFA PLAYERS I RE-SIGN:
OT Trent Williams
CB Jason Verrett
CB K'Waun Williams
CB Dontae Johnson
FB Kyle Juszczyk
DE Kerry Hyder
DE Jordan Willis
QB CJ Beathard
C Hroniss Grasu

RFA/ERFA PLAYERS I RE-SIGN (INCLUDING CAMP FODDER):
OL Daniel Brunskill
CB Emmanuel Moseley
TE Ross Dwelley
RB Jeff Wilson Jr
LS Taybor Pepper
QB Josh Rosen
S Marcell Harris
RB Austin Walter

PLAYERS I CUT FROM ROSTER:
DE Dee Ford
C Weston Richburg

PLAYERS RETURNING FROM OPT-OUT:
WR Travis Benjamin
C Jake Brendel
OT Shonn Coleman

Brief xplanation of some UFA/RFA/ERFA kept versus let go:
-Grasu is cheaper and younger than Garland with little to no drop-off, and provides competition at C/IOL.
-Ford and Richburg need to be cut whether it's pre or post-June 1 designation, eat the losses and move on as best you can.
-Keep Dontae Johnson as slot depth and STs help. He has been durable and has been at least half-decent in spot duty.
- While it's a tough decision, I let Spoon walk. He isn't going to be consistent enough and we need a real upgrade.
-While I wouldn't mind keeping Bourne, I think he takes a payday to go elsewhere. Hurd/James/Benjamin compete with a multi-dimensional rook in the slot.

PRE-DRAFT/FA DEPTH CHART:
QB: Jimmy Garoppolo, CJ Beathard, Josh Rosen
RB: Raheem Mostert, Jeff Wilson, Jamychal Hasty, Austin Walter
FB: Kyle Juszczyk, Josh Hokit
TE: George Kittle, Ross Dwelley, Charlie Woerner, Chase Harrell
WR: D. Samuel, B. Aiyuk, R. James, Jalen Hurd, T. Benjamin, Jajuan Jennings, Austin Proehl, Kevin White, Matt Cole, Chris Thompson
OT: Trent Williams, Mike McGlinchey, Justin Skule, Shonn Coleman
C: Daniel Brunskill, Jake Brendel
OG: Laken Tomlinson, Colton McKivitz, Dakoda Shepley, Isaiah Williams
DE: Nick Bosa, Arik Armstead, Kerry Hyder, Jordan Willis, Alex Barrett, Daeshon Hall
DT: Javon Kinlaw, Kevin Givens, Kentavius Street, Darrion Daniels, Josiah Coatney
LB: Fred Warner, Dre Greenlaw, Aziz Al-Shaair, Mark Nzeocha, Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles, Jonas Griffith
CB: Jason Verrett, Emmanuel Moseley, K'Waun Williams, Dontae Johnson, Adonis Alexander, Tim Harris Jr
FS: Jimmie Ward, Jared Mayden, Chris Edwards
SS: Tarvarius Moore, Marcell Harris, Obi Melifonwu

ST: Robbie Gould, Mitch Wishnowsky, Taybor Pepper

COACHING CHANGES:
-Promote Demeco Ryans to DC
-Promote Mike McDaniel to OC
-Consider Scangarello coming back in to replace LaFleur as passing game coordinator or in some other offensive assistant role.

FINANCES:
- We may have to restructure Jimmy in order to keep more of the team intact. It would make it more difficult to move him later on, but the hope is that the cap goes back up by then and hopefully minimizes any negative impact that this decision would cause.

OBVIOUS NEEDS GOING INTO FREE AGENCY/DRAFT: QB, C, OG, DE, LB, CB, S, WR
-Interior OL
-QB of the future
-Pass rusher
-LB Depth
-Slot WR
-KR/PR
-CB of the future

Originally posted by OnTheClock:
I wanted to pose this simple question, if you're the FO, what do you do with this team? We have a ton of free agents, and bunch of guys who are injury prone and/or underperforming, and then we have potential coaching vacancies on the offensive and defensive sides of the ball. How do you shape the team for 2021 that gives us a best chance to win and still sustain success going forward? I'll lay out my own outline as an example of how I'd suggest responding to this post.

List of Free Agents: https://overthecap.com/free-agency/san-francisco-49ers/

UFA PLAYERS I RE-SIGN:
OT Trent Williams
CB Jason Verrett
CB K'Waun Williams
CB Dontae Johnson
FB Kyle Juszczyk
DE Kerry Hyder
DE Jordan Willis
QB CJ Beathard
C Hroniss Grasu

RFA/ERFA PLAYERS I RE-SIGN (INCLUDING CAMP FODDER):
OL Daniel Brunskill
CB Emmanuel Moseley
TE Ross Dwelley
RB Jeff Wilson Jr
LS Taybor Pepper
QB Josh Rosen
S Marcell Harris
RB Austin Walter

PLAYERS I CUT FROM ROSTER:
DE Dee Ford
C Weston Richburg

PLAYERS RETURNING FROM OPT-OUT:
WR Travis Benjamin
C Jake Brendel
OT Shonn Coleman

Brief xplanation of some UFA/RFA/ERFA kept versus let go:
-Grasu is cheaper and younger than Garland with little to no drop-off, and provides competition at C/IOL.
-Ford and Richburg need to be cut whether it's pre or post-June 1 designation, eat the losses and move on as best you can.
-Keep Dontae Johnson as slot depth and STs help. He has been durable and has been at least half-decent in spot duty.
-While I wouldn't mind keeping Bourne, I think he takes a payday to go elsewhere. Hurd/James/Benjamin compete with a multi-dimensional rook in the slot.

PRE-DRAFT/FA DEPTH CHART:
QB: Jimmy Garoppolo, CJ Beathard, Josh Rosen
RB: Raheem Mostert, Jeff Wilson, Jamychal Hasty, Austin Walter
FB: Kyle Juszczyk, Josh Hokit
TE: George Kittle, Ross Dwelley, Charlie Woerner, Chase Harrell
WR: D. Samuel, B. Aiyuk, R. James, Jalen Hurd, T. Benjamin, Jajuan Jennings, Austin Proehl, Kevin White, Matt Cole, Chris Thompson
OT: Trent Williams, Mike McGlinchey, Justin Skule, Shonn Coleman
C: Daniel Brunskill, Jake Brendel
OG: Laken Tomlinson, Colton McKivitz, Dakoda Shepley, Isaiah Williams
DE: Nick Bosa, Arik Armstead, Kerry Hyder, Jordan Willis, Alex Barrett, Daeshon Hall
DT: Javon Kinlaw, Kevin Givens, Kentavius Street, Darrion Daniels, Josiah Coatney
LB: Fred Warner, Dre Greenlaw, Aziz Al-Shaair, Mark Nzeocha, Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles, Jonas Griffith
CB: Jason Verrett, Emmanuel Moseley, K'Waun Williams, Dontae Johnson, Adonis Alexander, Tim Harris Jr
FS: Jimmie Ward, Jared Mayden, Chris Edwards
SS: Tarvarius Moore, Marcell Harris, Obi Melifonwu

ST: Robbie Gould, Mitch Wishnowsky, Taybor Pepper

COACHING CHANGES:
-Promote Demeco Ryans to DC
-Promote Mike McDaniel to OC
-Consider Scangarello coming back in to replace LaFleur as passing game coordinator or in some other offensive assistant role.

OBVIOUS NEEDS GOING INTO FREE AGENCY/DRAFT: QB, C, OG, DE, LB, CB, S, WR
-Interior OL
-QB of the future
-Pass rusher
-LB Depth
-Slot WR
-KR/PR
-CB of the future

Nothing simple about what you are posing, my man.

I can give a better detailed answer but the choice I find difficult is between Verrett and Juice. If big Trent is re-signed, I can't see both Verrett and Juice coming back. The other important guy is KWilliams. Tough choices, but at the moment I'm leaning towards Verrett.

Does Obi Melifonwu play nickel?

I was looking at free agents and I'm intrigued by Hassan Reddick and could potentially kill 2 birds with one stone. I've read the Cards used him as OLB but he excelled late in the season when he was used as a EDGE rusher in the nickel and be our 3rd LB in base 4-3.

Originally posted by OnTheClock:
I wanted to pose this simple question, if you're the FO, what do you do with this team? We have a ton of free agents, and bunch of guys who are injury prone and/or underperforming, and then we have potential coaching vacancies on the offensive and defensive sides of the ball. How do you shape the team for 2021 that gives us a best chance to win and still sustain success going forward? I'll lay out my own outline as an example of how I'd suggest responding to this post.

List of Free Agents: https://overthecap.com/free-agency/san-francisco-49ers/

UFA PLAYERS I RE-SIGN:
OT Trent Williams
CB Jason Verrett
CB K'Waun Williams
CB Dontae Johnson
FB Kyle Juszczyk
DE Kerry Hyder
DE Jordan Willis
QB CJ Beathard
C Hroniss Grasu

RFA/ERFA PLAYERS I RE-SIGN (INCLUDING CAMP FODDER):
OL Daniel Brunskill
CB Emmanuel Moseley
TE Ross Dwelley
RB Jeff Wilson Jr
LS Taybor Pepper
QB Josh Rosen
S Marcell Harris
RB Austin Walter

PLAYERS I CUT FROM ROSTER:
DE Dee Ford
C Weston Richburg

PLAYERS RETURNING FROM OPT-OUT:
WR Travis Benjamin
C Jake Brendel
OT Shonn Coleman

Brief xplanation of some UFA/RFA/ERFA kept versus let go:
-Grasu is cheaper and younger than Garland with little to no drop-off, and provides competition at C/IOL.
-Ford and Richburg need to be cut whether it's pre or post-June 1 designation, eat the losses and move on as best you can.
-Keep Dontae Johnson as slot depth and STs help. He has been durable and has been at least half-decent in spot duty.
-While I wouldn't mind keeping Bourne, I think he takes a payday to go elsewhere. Hurd/James/Benjamin compete with a multi-dimensional rook in the slot.

PRE-DRAFT/FA DEPTH CHART:
QB: Jimmy Garoppolo, CJ Beathard, Josh Rosen
RB: Raheem Mostert, Jeff Wilson, Jamychal Hasty, Austin Walter
FB: Kyle Juszczyk, Josh Hokit
TE: George Kittle, Ross Dwelley, Charlie Woerner, Chase Harrell
WR: D. Samuel, B. Aiyuk, R. James, Jalen Hurd, T. Benjamin, Jajuan Jennings, Austin Proehl, Kevin White, Matt Cole, Chris Thompson
OT: Trent Williams, Mike McGlinchey, Justin Skule, Shonn Coleman
C: Daniel Brunskill, Jake Brendel
OG: Laken Tomlinson, Colton McKivitz, Dakoda Shepley, Isaiah Williams
DE: Nick Bosa, Arik Armstead, Kerry Hyder, Jordan Willis, Alex Barrett, Daeshon Hall
DT: Javon Kinlaw, Kevin Givens, Kentavius Street, Darrion Daniels, Josiah Coatney
LB: Fred Warner, Dre Greenlaw, Aziz Al-Shaair, Mark Nzeocha, Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles, Jonas Griffith
CB: Jason Verrett, Emmanuel Moseley, K'Waun Williams, Dontae Johnson, Adonis Alexander, Tim Harris Jr
FS: Jimmie Ward, Jared Mayden, Chris Edwards
SS: Tarvarius Moore, Marcell Harris, Obi Melifonwu

ST: Robbie Gould, Mitch Wishnowsky, Taybor Pepper

COACHING CHANGES:
-Promote Demeco Ryans to DC
-Promote Mike McDaniel to OC
-Consider Scangarello coming back in to replace LaFleur as passing game coordinator or in some other offensive assistant role.

OBVIOUS NEEDS GOING INTO FREE AGENCY/DRAFT: QB, C, OG, DE, LB, CB, S, WR
-Interior OL
-QB of the future
-Pass rusher
-LB Depth
-Slot WR
-KR/PR
-CB of the future

What happens to Witherspoon?

bring back 2-3 if possible T. Williams , K. Williams, Juice, hyder, j. verett in that order

Originally posted by fropwns:

Nothing simple about what you are posing, my man.

Definitely. I believe in Paraag. I think ultimately, we may decide to restructure Jimmy and deal with the ramifications later with the hope that the cap will go back up and hopefully mitigate any potential drawback to restructuring him this year.

Originally posted by thl408:

I can give a better detailed answer but the choice I find difficult is between Verrett and Juice. If big Trent is re-signed, I can't see both Verrett and Juice coming back. The other important guy is KWilliams. Tough choices, but at the moment I'm leaning towards Verrett.

We play so much better with K'won in the game, not just in the slot pass, but he's a good tackler. What happened to Jamar Taylor from everyone's lists? Didn't he do well as a backup until injured? I would keep him instead of Dontae Johnson who we could always pick up later after week 3 for injuries.

Verrett we keep, Juice and Trent are keeps.
In think Jimmy G needs a restructure to make this all work, otherwise we trade him package a bunch of picks and save $$ on a top young QB in the draft.

Originally posted by mitpdub:

Originally posted by thl408:

I can give a better detailed answer but the choice I find difficult is between Verrett and Juice. If big Trent is re-signed, I can't see both Verrett and Juice coming back. The other important guy is KWilliams. Tough choices, but at the moment I'm leaning towards Verrett.

We play so much better with K'won in the game, not just in the slot pass, but he's a good tackler. What happened to Jamar Taylor from everyone's lists? Didn't he do well as a backup until injured? I would keep him instead of Dontae Johnson who we could always pick up later after week 3 for injuries.

Verrett we keep, Juice and Trent are keeps.
In think Jimmy G needs a restructure to make this all work, otherwise we trade him package a bunch of picks and save $$ on a top young QB in the draft.

I'd love it if it was that simple, "keep him, keep him, keep him too". Restructuring Jimmy means committing to him so we'll see what the team thinks there.

In retrospect, I don't think Verrett and Juice are in the same general salary tier. Verrett could ask for something in the $8-10 range whereas Juice is in the $4-5 range. It might come down to if big Trent is re-signed, there's no money for Verrett. I know it's mainly about the guarantee money but I'm speaking in yearly cap hit.

If they resign Juice they should actually get him the ball more often (like later in the last season). Jimmy G it is hard to justify paying him much more than his market value; which I don't know what that is (but $15 million feels like a max to me). Verrett is a guy you need to be careful with he is is very good when healthy, but he misses a few to a lot of games every year.

Originally posted by pdfortune:
If they resign Juice they should actually get him the ball more often (like later in the last season). Jimmy G it is hard to justify paying him much more than his market value; which I don't know what that is (but $15 million feels like a max to me). Verrett is a guy you need to be careful with he is is very good when healthy, but he misses a few to a lot of games every year.

Very few guys on the Niners don't miss a few games every year. It comes with the uniform.

Originally posted by thl408:

Originally posted by mitpdub:

Originally posted by thl408:
I can give a better detailed answer but the choice I find difficult is between Verrett and Juice. If big Trent is re-signed, I can't see both Verrett and Juice coming back. The other important guy is KWilliams. Tough choices, but at the moment I'm leaning towards Verrett.

We play so much better with K'won in the game, not just in the slot pass, but he's a good tackler. What happened to Jamar Taylor from everyone's lists? Didn't he do well as a backup until injured? I would keep him instead of Dontae Johnson who we could always pick up later after week 3 for injuries.

Verrett we keep, Juice and Trent are keeps.
In think Jimmy G needs a restructure to make this all work, otherwise we trade him package a bunch of picks and save $$ on a top young QB in the draft.

I'd love it if it was that simple, "keep him, keep him, keep him too". Restructuring Jimmy means committing to him so we'll see what the team thinks there.

In retrospect, I don't think Verrett and Juice are in the same general salary tier. Verrett could ask for something in the $8-10 range whereas Juice is in the $4-5 range. It might come down to if big Trent is re-signed, there's no money for Verrett. I know it's mainly about the guarantee money but I'm speaking in yearly cap hit.

Personally, I think with DeeBo and Aiyuk, I think they can go with a younger FB in Hokit - specially if Juice wants top of the line money. Top CB's are hard to come by, and Verrett knows the system. ShanaLynch should do their best to retain Verrett. If Trent can be retained, you save a first round draft pick. I think the ShanaLynch game plan *is* to restructure Jimmy's contract. I don't see ShanaLynch trading or getting rid of Jimmy any time soon. My basic strategy this offseason is to retain as many good offensive players (Trent being my top priority) as I can get for as low as I can pay, and draft defense this year. The extra 3rd round pick because of the Saleh hire, I'd use to draft a younger, faster, better pass catching back like a Tevan Coleman 2.0 to add depth and insurance to the Arby corps to protect Jimmy's health.

I think it all depends on free agency. I can literally see an exodus of FA leaving the 49ers. And I don't think the 49ers are comfortable giving out large contracts to players on the wrong side of 30 (e.g. Sherman).

If K. Williams, Hyder, and T. Williams depart, I look at 2021 as a youth movement year. Cut Richburg and Ford. Get budget buy FAs - including draft busts that may just need a better scheme fit / coaching development.

And focus the draft to address OL, EDGE, and DB positions. This means we basically role with Garoppolo for another year. If he excels, great. If not, rebuild in 2022 with a new QB.

I don't see any option assuming the 49ers retain Garoppolo outside of potentially trading for Darnold - which I'm not a fan of doing if it sacrifices a bunch of picks. Unless Saleh provides a SF discount :-)

The fact on whichever possible scenario is that Jimmy G CAN'T get paid 27M in 2021. So either he is cut, traded or restructured to get paid around 15M which is what he deserves.
The second fact is Richburg and Ford are unanimous cuts, perhaps june 1 cuts to save more money.
The OL needs to be upgraded and the focus should go on the future of the offense. Trent Williams should come back, otherwise you'll be forced to draft Rashawn Slater which is not the best value but wouldn't hate it. Day 2 picks must be spent on the IOL and perhaps bring a FA Center.
The defense will struggle no matter what, there will be growing pains with Demeco taking over. The secondary will have to be rebuilt. Perhaps you can bring back Verrett for cheap because of the injury history, or the Jets will overpay him. I can see Spoon coming back for cheap because he just hasn't been consistent. Sherman is gone. Tartt most likely gone. Would love K'waun back.
It'll be a very interesting offseason and I guarantee lots of fans here will do what they do best, cry and whine for every single move that the FO did or didn't do.