The clock is ticking.
As far as Tim Kawakami is concerned, time is about to expire on the real deadline for the 49ers: Tuesday, September 5. It’s the final day before the 49ers’ first of three practices ahead of Sunday’s season opener at Pittsburgh.
Kawakami said he’s a bit confounded as to why the 49ers believe Bosa would budge on his number, and why there hasn’t been greater urgency to get a deal done.
He doesn’t think Bosa will budge, and that will bite the 49ers.
“Bosa ain’t moving. He’s not going to crumble,” Kawakami said on KNBR. “That’s what T.J. Watt kinda did when he came in, he’s like, I just need to play. I don’t think Nick Bosa’s doing that. That’s just not what this family is about.”
He stressed that the 49ers could lose to the Pittsburgh Steelers on the road even with Bosa, which is not an ideal way to start the season.
If there is a deadline to get Bosa to play against Pittsburgh in any sort of full-ish capacity, Kawakami believes it’s today.
“I don’t understand exactly why there isn’t a double urgency. I would think today, to make everybody feel better, today is like the last reasonable day,” Kawakami said. “Because you could get him on a plane, you can get through practice tomorrow. Maybe go full go Thursday. You get him on the plane Friday, you feel pretty good about it. It’s today….
“And I don’t feel like it’s happening today.”
In order for Bosa to play at all on Sunday, Kawakami thinks he needs to practice with the team at least once this week, on Friday. At that point, 20 to 25 snaps could be doable, but anything more than that would “be pushing it,” and jeopardizing Bosa’s health later in the year.
But Kawakami thinks there’s a chance this could linger, and the 49ers should potentially be very worried if a deal doesn’t happen Tuesday:
So then you start thinking about okay, when is he going to be full go for the season?
Let’s say if he doesn’t make it back for this one, are we counting down Week 2? And if he’s not there for Week 2, they’re playing Thursday in Week 3. Then you really start thinking about a serious chunk of the season gone by.
And I go back to, if the 49ers are thinking that he’s going to feel like he has to come in, I think they’re wrong. I don’t think he feels he has to come in. I don’t think you force Nick Bosa to do anything.
He might just report in Week 8, like what Chris Jones tweeted out like, go come in Week 8, you get the contract to toll, and then you’re a free agent next year. And then you go through the whole franchise tag thing and that’ll be a whole drama. If it’s not done today, if we don’t hear that there’s serious things going on today, then the alarm bells start to go.
That is not exactly the most confidence-inspiring assessment.
If the 49ers can’t get Bosa signed for the season opener, their starting defensive end pairing would be Drake Jackson and Clelin Ferrell.
Listen to the full interview above. You can listen to every KNBR interview on our podcast page at knbr.com/podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Catch Papa & Lund weekdays from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. on KNBR 104.5 / 680 and streaming live on KNBR.com.
