SANTA CLARA, California – If San Francisco 49ers‘ trade for running back Christian McCaffrey While it seems like a move they hope will put them all the way to the top to win the Super Bowl, there’s a good reason for that: It is.
The Niners and Carolina Panthers officially completed trading Friday morning with San Francisco sending second, third, and fourth picks in 2023 and fifth round picks in 2024 to the Panthers to McCaffrey.
In San Francisco, the hope is that McCaffrey can bring the 49ers one step closer to overcoming the hurdles and winning the Super Bowl after a brief run in 2019 and 2021.
“You only do this when you have faith in your team,” said CEO John Lynch. “Last time we made such a big splash, it was [receiver] Emmanuel Sanders back to 19 because we felt like we had a capable team [winning] entire agreement. … We’re 3-3 now, so we understand that we have a lot of work to do and this is not a magic pill that can fix all of our ills with confidence. way is a team. We all have to get better but we still believe in this team, and that’s why we beat a great footballer. “
McCaffrey arrived in the Bay Area on Friday morning and was quickly plugged into the team’s daily operations. After completing his fitness, he received a locker and a helmet and took part in the team’s practice session on a gentle Friday midstream.
It is not yet clear if McCaffrey will play on Sunday with Chief of Kansas City, but Lynch said McCaffrey has been lobbying to get active. Regardless of whether that debut is on Sunday or next week compared to RamsThe Niners are happy that he will be playing for them and not another team next week in Los Angeles.
The Rams have a routine of big deals for big names on their way to last year’s Super Bowl victory and are the Niners’ closest competition to get McCaffrey. That is something that Niners is increasingly aware of and reinforces their desire to complete transactions like this as quickly as possible.
“I’m glad he’s not there,” Lynch said. “It seems like a lot of situations like that end up when we’re up against them in these things. …I know they tend to come late and go big. And so I tried to get it done first. here, but it’s not. won’t happen.”
Alas, the Niners completed the deal, albeit at a considerable cost. Lynch said sales started coming together when the team was in West Virginia for practice last week.
McCaffrey has long been on the radar of San Francisco, ever since the 2017 NFL draft when coach Kyle Shanahan was a big proponent of the Stanford product. The Niners finally chose the defender Solomon ThomasMcCaffrey’s teammate at Stanford, with a 3rd overall pick instead.
Lynch said on Friday that he and McCaffrey joked about what the six-year wait to get him to the Niners would be so “everything will be fine” when he finally joins the team.
And while the Niners will get McCaffrey for a bargain price of less than $700,000 for the rest of this season, his salary cap figure will increase to $12 million in each of the next three seasons. That’s a huge number for a returning runner who has missed 23 games over the past two seasons through injury, even someone as talented as McCaffrey.
But McCaffrey also no longer has money fully guaranteed on his contract beyond this year, which means a reworked deal could be in the works. But Lynch has made it clear that the team considers McCaffrey to be the 49-year-old overlord this season.
“It’s not every day that you get a guy like Christian at the bare minimum,” Lynch said. “And that’s basically where we got him. But he still has years on his contract after that. I think we’re taking it one step at a time, but obviously it helps to know that he is. there’s been a number of years after this year and it’s not just an 11 game, missing a better word, rental.”
