Dee Ford’s injury guarantee may force 49ers to keep him

San Francisco pass rusher Dee Ford has missed more games than he has played and has primarily been a backup since the 49ers signed him to a five year, $85.5 million contract in 2019. Ordinarily, that would mean he’d get cut.

But Ford’s contract makes that difficult.

The 49ers can’t cut Ford until he can pass a physical, and General Manager John Lynch has acknowledged that Ford may not be healthy for the start of the 2021 season. As noted by Matt Maiocco of NBCSportsBayArea.com, Ford has an injury guarantee that means $11.6 million of his base salary becomes fully guaranteed if he’s still on the 49ers’ roster on April 1.

That may mean the 49ers are stuck with Ford under his current contract, even if they’d rather move on from a player who has struggled to stay healthy and has fallen short of expectations even when he was healthy. Ford’s 2021 cap hit of more than $20 million may have to remain on the 49ers’ cap, whether the team likes it or not.

Q

:D

The source of that PFT article is this one:

https://www.nbcsports.com/bayarea/49...ndle-situation

It makes no mention of Ford's contract requiring him to pass a physical and it also mentions that 3 other players are involved as well.

Highly unlikely all 4 have injury guarantees that prevent them from being cut.

https://www.profootballrumors.com/20...post-id=202953

Lions’ Marvin Jones To Chase Super Bowl In Free Agency

At this point in my career, that’s what I want,” Jones said. (via Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press). “But at the same time, it’s not going to be — I’m not going to just straight sacrifice and not get what I’m worth just because I’ve put in my work to get where I’m at and it happened the first time and I did it, and I think I outplayed it the second time.”

It's so strange to me that he didn't go on IR immediately, especially with the more lenient IR rules in 2020. He missed 3 games, then went on IR, which tells me they were hopeful during that time period that he could make a quick return. I don't know much about these injuries, but if it was a fracture, you'd think they'd be able to identify it pretty quickly and they'd move to place him on IR so he could heal. Probably not likely he plays again, but I haven't given up all hope.

It makes me wonder if its not nerves or something. Maybe theres no more damage than normal but something is giving him fits.

If they don’t plan to draft an ‘X’, I think he’d be an EXCELLENT stop gap.

I’m starting to love Rashod Bateman though. That kid is going to be a baller from day one.

Barring somebody completely unexpected falling to 31, Bateman would be #1 on my realistic board.

Or Hippa laws...

One of the team doctors from when Montana was in KC is a family friend and seemed to indicate that’s why more info wasn’t available during the Berry situation. Some people are very protective of that stuff, for whatever reason.

I’d be fine with bringing in any of the following WRs in FA.

Marvin Jones
Keelan Cole
Josh Reynolds
Robert Foster

Reynolds is a guy that is VERY intriguing.

I don't think Bateman is 100% realistic right now.

By realistic I just mean realistically possible. He likely won’t be available, but it’s absolutely possible.

Yeah, he's probably a 20% guy right now. So there's at least a chance.

Honestly, I think chances are a little better than that, but it’s certainly under 50%.