Colin Kaepernick is going to get a new contract. Whether it be from the San Francisco 49ers or another NFL team, Kaepernick knows how much he is worth, and he knows he can get a Tom Brady-like contract even without performing up to Brady standards.
According to CBS’s Jason LaCanfora, it may not even be this offseason that Kaepernick gets his next contract (he is only making $1.63 million next season), but when the negotiations happen, he is going to ask for $20 million per year.
“So I'll let you in on a little secret,” LaCanfora write. “The 49ers already know this. Unequivocally. Their negotiations with their young franchise quarterback are still in their infancy, but they are quite aware there aren't any bargain deals to be had here. Far from it. Talks with Kaepernick, if they truly get off the ground, will begin at $20 million a year.”
So, what does this mean for the 49ers? Well, for one, they will lock up their franchise quarterback who is shaping up to be an eventual top-five quarterback in the NFL.
This season, Kaepernick took the 49ers to the playoffs for the second year in a row and almost made the Super Bowl. In the regular season, Kaepernick completed 58.4 percent of his passes for 3,197 yards, 21 touchdowns and eight interceptions. That’s not even including the threat he provides on the ground, rushing for 524 yards this year.
There has been only one other quarterback to put up those types of numbers in a single season: Steve Young, according to Pro Football Reference. In 1992, Young thre for 3,465 yards and 25 touchdowns while rushing for 537 yards. The only other guy who comes close is Robert Griffin III from his rookie year, who come up one passing touchdown short of matching Kaepernick’s numbers, but Griffin ran for about 300 more yards.
So, if the 49ers were to lock up Kaepernick for the long term, they would definitely be getting a unique talent. Kaepernick took off in December this year when Michael Crabtree came back, and San Francisco brought back Anquan Boldin, Kaepernick’s favorite target from this season.
And you have to like a guy who, in two years as a starter, has appeared in the Super Bowl once and the NFC Championship the year after that.
Locking up Kaepernick gives the 49ers stability, which they could lose if this odd situation with Jim Harbaugh and the 49ers’ front office keeps up. It is so tough in the modern NFL to find a franchise quarterback, as San Francisco can attest to with the Alex Smith situation for several years.
The quarterback is the most important position in football right now, so they are rightfully getting the biggest contracts. But what would a $20 million per-year contract mean for the 49ers?
Look at what has happened with the Baltimore Ravens. After Joe Flacco won the Super Bowl (when he faced and beat Kaepernick), he got a huge contract from the Ravens.
During the 2016-17 season, Flacco will be making $28.55 million, and $31.15 million the year after that. During the first big year of Flacco’s contract, Haloti Ngata’s contract will be expiring (Baltimore’s biggest contract at the moment) and tight end Dennis Pitta just resigned for $7.7 million per year.
Knowing that cap space was going to be tight, the Ravens had to release linebacker Jameel McClain and fullback Vonta Leach. Flacco’s contract isn’t the only one taking up a big chunk of cap space, but general manager Ozzie Newsome has to be looking at that $31.15 million in 2017 and already be concerned for what he will do that year in free agency.
The same goes for the Bears, who gave Cutler $22.5 million for this season, and $15.5 million for each year after that for four seasons.
Next offseason, the Bears will have to address the issue of trying to bring back Brandon Marshall and Lance Briggs, and Alshon Jeffery may be looking to get a new contract before his rookie deal runs out.
Presumably, because of the cap space Cutler is taking up, the Bears will have to choose between bringing back Marshall or Briggs for the long term, because Chicago currently has the sixth smallest amount of cap space in the league.
If Kaepernick chooses to play out the last year of his rookie deal and then go to the negotiating table with the 49ers, they will have to also resign Glenn Dorsey, Mike Iupati, Frank Gore, Michael Crabtree and Aldon Smith. If all five of those players came back for the same amount of money (Gore could probably even take a pay cut with his age), they would all be making a combined $24 million per year, only $4 million more than what LaCanfora says Kaepernick would be asking for.
And given the way that Iupati, Smith and Crabtree have been playing, they will all be looking for bigger contracts.
It would be incredibly difficult for the 49ers just to let Kaepernick walk obviously, so the safe bet is to say that he’ll stay in San Francisco. But, the value of having that big of a contract on the books really needs to be examined by not just the 49ers, but the rest of the teams in the NFL, to really consider how much a quarterback can mean to a team.