The San Francisco 49ers are currently in a championship window, with the team stacked on both sides of the football with one of the best head coaches in the game in Kyle Shahanan.
Unfortunately for the 49ers, the quarterback position posed a problem heading into this NFL offseason.
Jimmy Garoppolo left the team for the Las Vegas Raiders, and Brock Purdy and Trey Lance are recovering from injuries.
All signs point to Purdy being the long-term starter once he’s healthy, but in the meantime, the team may turn to veteran Sam Darnold, who the team recently signed.
However, according to David Lombardi of The Athletic, the team’s cap hit due to Darnold’s contract is higher than expected.
So Sam Darnold’s 2023 cap hit is $1.2m higher than initially thought — $5.1m, not $3.9m.
And we now know that one of Darnold’s incentives is 49ers’ wins in which he takes at least 25% of snaps. Each of those would earn him $300k. Darnold had 4 of those w/ Carolina last year https://t.co/zAK5liadF7
—David Lombardi (@LombardiHimself) April 4, 2023
Despite this detail about Darnold’s contract surfacing, the team will need the veteran quarterback to help out once the 2023 campaign gets underway, as he could be the Week 1 starter.
Even though Lance had a second surgery on his injured right ankle in December, the soon-to-be 23-year-old is expected to return for OTAs, which is good news for San Francisco.
However, that doesn’t mean he’ll immediately get his job back, with Darnold being an insurance policy until Purdy can get back on the field, which unfortunately doesn’t have a current timetable.
Training camp for the 49ers will be interesting, to say the least, with the main storyline during camp being who will be No. 1 on the depth chart at quarterback.
Lance will undoubtedly have the opportunity to earn the starting job during camp while Darnold tries to prove his worth to be the short-term starter in San Francisco.
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The 49ers Dominate A Top 2023 Projection
