[49ers Webzone] Earlier this week, ESPN’s Kalyn Kahler revealed that the San Francisco 49ers will actually gain significant salary cap relief in 2026 following defensive end Nick Bosa’s season-ending ACL injury. The savings come from an insurance policy the team purchased as part of Bosa’s five-year

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  1. According to The Athletic’s Matt Barrows, the 49ers’ total cap savings from the policy could ultimately approach $9 million. However, those financial benefits come at the steep cost of losing a team leader and one of the foundational cornerstones of San Francisco’s defense.

  2. Makes us potential buyers at the trade deadline if we stay competitive. Definitely a silver lining.

  6. She wrote a really in-depth article on how NFL insurance works last year (with a focus on QBs), it was an interesting read on something that’s rarely reported on: https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/41274295/

    49ers mentions in the article:

    > Buffum [former manager of football administration for the 49ers] said when he worked for the 49ers from 2014 to 2022, the Niners discussed buying a policy for almost any non-minimum extension, and most of the time, the decision was yes.

    > The team insured three players who missed a significant amount of time due to injury in 2020: Jimmy Garoppolo (10 games), Dee Ford (15 games) and George Kittle (8 games). Garoppolo’s contract insurance language said the team insured up to $15 million, but it did not specify for which years (it was likely for less than that amount in 2020 because he was in Year 3 of his deal), and Ford’s playing contract specified up to $8 million of his regular-season salary for that year.

    > “It was just a windfall of insurance that year,” Buffum said.

    > The Niners declined to comment on the amount of insurance proceeds they received that season, but Roster Management System reports San Francisco earned $11.2 million in end-of-year cap adjustments, a sum that includes insurance credit, along with other forms of credit or expenses, such as unearned incentives. For the 2021 season, San Francisco’s adjustment was $5.5 million more than the second-place team. The cap decreased by $15.7 million that year because of the 2020 COVID season losses, and no team besides the 49ers was even close to making up that gap.

    > “The cap went down for the first time ever,” Buffum said. “And it aided our ability to keep our team intact.”

    > The Niners’ 10-year total in end-of-year adjustments is $54.3 million, double the second-place team’s total. This number isn’t only insurance credit, but representative of other savvy cap hacks that benefit teams when players get hurt, such as paying salary in the form of per-game roster bonuses.

    It is a strange system. It’s optional and about 5 teams don’t purchase insurance on their players at all so they don’t get any cap relief for injuries like this. Many only insure their top-paid player. So owners willing to spend on this have an advantage. One former exec called it a loophole.

  8. Let’s go get Granderson. He and Huff would be worth keeping long term either way. The 49ers are the god of insurance payouts.

  9. I wonder how often our team’s health insurance deductible and cost go up each year. Something poetic about us being injured so often we have injury insurance now lol.

  10. If they’re still atop the division or conference in terms of record near the trade deadline you absolutely have to be aggressive for someone like Hendrickson/Granderson or maybe Thibs

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