Trading for Emmanuel Sanders might’ve helped get the 49ers over the hump and into Super Bowl LIV. Playing for a Lombardi Trophy in exchange for third and fourth-round picks was an easy trade that San Francisco would surely make again. Now they face a more difficult decision with the 32-year-old receiver and soon-to-be unrestricted free agent.
The 49ers enter the offseason in a bit of a salary cap bind and a slew of valuable free agents set to hit the market when the league year opens on March 18. They’re due to have about $13 million in salary cap space according to Over the Cap – a number that could rise with some cuts and contract restructures.
Still, even with a little cap relief, San Francisco isn’t going to have a ton of money to spend in the offseason, which could make retaining Sanders impossible.
While head coach Kyle Shanahan badly wants Sanders to stay in Santa Clara, he didn’t sound certain about the veteran’s return when he spoke to 49ers reporters Tuesday at the NFL combine in Indianapolis.
“I do not think we would have got (to) where we got without Emmanuel,” Shanahan said according to the Athletic’s Matt Barrows. “I would love (more) than anything to have Emmanuel back. Bad. But we’ve got to see how that all plays out, too. When you look at all our young receivers, we’ve invested in those guys the last two years.”
The 49ers have a pair of second-round picks in Deebo Samuel and Dante Pettis, along with third-round pick Jalen Hurd set to return from a back injury that kept him out all of last season. They paid Marquise Goodwin on a three-year $18.85 million contract in 2018, and they’ll have to re-sign restricted free agent Kendrick Bourne.
Samuel in particular expressed a desire to see Sanders back in a 49ers uniform next season. Jimmy Garoppolo was also a supporter of Sanders’ return.
Keeping Sanders probably pushes out one of the younger players on the roster, especially if he winds up commanding a hearty, multi-year contract on the open market.
“I think it is hard and risky to invest in receivers because it’s just a different type of game,” Shanahan said via Barrows. “But I do know that (with) every receiver in our building a lot of the young guys have had success already. And a lot of the young guys who haven’t had success yet, they have the ability to do it. They need to get healthy. They have to get better in some areas. But we have some players in our building.”
It’s the unproven players that make the Sanders quandary so difficult for the 49ers. He stepped in and immediately became a go-to target for Jimmy Garoppolo, racking up 502 yards and three touchdowns on 36 catches in 10 regular-season games. It may not be as easy as plugging in one of their incumbent receivers to replicate that kind of production.
However, as Shanahan indicated, they’ve made significant investments in improving their receiving corps, and there’s a chance they select another receiver in the 2020 draft.
If Sanders does return to the 49ers, it likely means there wasn’t much of a market for him in free agency. That seems next to impossible though given how good he was in his 10th season, and the more teams are in on signing Sanders, the lower San Francisco’s odds are of retaining him no matter how bad Shanahan may want him around.