Kicker Eddy Piñeiro proved invaluable. Yet, the 49ers signal a preference for negotiation over the costly franchise tag for their star.
View More
Video Transcript
The San Francisco 49ers have decisions to make with their twenty-seven impending free agents this off-season.
While the franchise tags remain an option before the March deadline, it doesn’t sound like the team plans on using it for their– even for their most obvious candidate, Eddie Pinero.
Speaking at the NFL Combine, General Manager John Lynch made it clear and said that they’re not anticipating using their franchise tag.
“Eddie was obviously fantastic,” he said.
“We got a couple weeks before free agency to continue to work towards something.
Obviously, there’s great interest to try to figure that out.”
That doesn’t sound like a front opis- office preparing to slap a tag on its kicker.
It sounds like a team trying to negotiate.
To be clear, Pinero’s case is strong.
He was one of the best cooker- kickers in football in twenty twenty-five and led the NFL with a ninety-six point six field goal conversion rate, connecting on twenty-eight of twenty-nine attempts.
He also hit six of seven from fifty-plus yards and converted thirty-four of thirty-eight extra points.
The projected franchise tag for kickers in twenty twenty-six is around six point seven million.
While this isn’t an outrageous number, for a single season, the highest q- kickers make around that amount.
Harrison Butker currently averages six point four million.
Brandon Aubrey is apparently asking for more than ten million annually on his next deal.
But market projections peg Pinero more around the five point four million dollar range.
If the 49ers believe that they can land Pinero on a multi-year deal closer to that five, five point five million annual range, using the tag becomes unnecessary and expensive.
The 49ers are juggling extensions, restructures, and depth decisions across the roster.
Every dollar matters for a team trying to sustain a championship window.
The team likely will prefer a reasonable multi-year extension, letting Pinero test the market and matching if necessary, but avoiding a premium one-year tag altogether.
When a general manager says he’s not anticipating using a franchise tag, that is usually intentional.
It signals two things.
The team wants a deal done, and they don’t wanna overpay in the short term.
The clock is definitely ticking, but for now, the franchise tag doesn’t appear to be part of the plan.