What do the 49ers do with Marquise Goodwin? It looked like adding the wide receiver to the list of salary cap casualties while San Francisco looked to create more room to sign and re-sign players was an easy move. Head coach Kyle Shanahan’s comments Tuesday to reporters at the NFL combine paints a different picture about where the 49ers are leaning regarding the receiver’s future with the team.
There are a couple options with Goodwin. The first is to release him and save $3.6 million against the salary cap in 2020. It appeared things were trending this way after Goodwin played only 40 snaps across his final four games before going on Injured Reserve in the middle of December with knee and foot issues.
2019 was the second year in a row that Goodwin dealt with injuries, and he played only 20 games between the 2018 and 2019 seasons.
It looked like, given the 49ers’ salary cap situation, that letting Goodwin go was going to be a relatively easy decision from a business standpoint.
Shanahan shook that notion Tuesday when he said Goodwin is too valuable to simply let go.
“We don’t want to release Marquise,” Shanahan said via Jennifer Lee Chan of NBC Sports Bay Arrea. “He’s too valuable. I know he fell out of the rotation last year, then he had an injury that he wanted to go on IR so he could go get it cleaned up, and I think it is right now.
“But Quise is a guy who can play in this league and if he’s on our team, he is going to be competing with that group. And if not, I feel pretty confident that another team would want him.”
Shanahan presents the second option for the 49ers – keep Goodwin on the roster.
There’s a role for the speedy receiver in Shanahan’s offense. We saw how effective he can be during his career-year in 2017. He posted 56 catches for 962 yards and two touchdowns. Most of that production came with either Brian Hoyer or CJ Beathard at quarterback. Injuries slowed him down in 2018, but he still 23 balls for 395 yards and four touchdowns.
His game-changing speed is the kind of thing opposing teams can’t always match, and his ability to stretch the field vertically was an element the 49ers’ receiving corps missed last year. With a relatively wide open depth chart at receiver, it wouldn’t be crazy to see Goodwin bounce back healthy in 2020 to carve out a productive role in the offense.
That wide open receiver group presents a third option that Shanahan on Tuesday didn’t shy away from. The 49ers could also trade Goodwin.
“You also don’t get rid of valuable people just for nothing,” Shanahan said according to Matt Barrows of the Athletic. “So we’ll have him come back and compete and if that doesn’t work out we could always possibly trade him. There are lots of things that are open. But I don’t know that exact answer yet.”
Acquiring draft picks through any means is a good idea for the 49ers, a team in need of cheap talent while some of their established veterans get big-time raises.
That pick likely wouldn’t come in this year’s draft though since all signs point to the 49ers at least giving Goodwin an opportunity to compete for a job in the offseason. How he performs will inform San Francisco’s decisions beyond that. If he looks ready to contribute, he’ll stay on his $4.9 million price tag. If he does okay, but not well enough to earn a job, the door for a trade will be kicked open.
All options appear to be on the table, except for the one that seemed most obvious at the end of last season.
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