PHOTO: SERGIO ESTRADA
Hello, 2025.
You’re sure to be a fascinating year. You will reveal to us how good Buster Posey is at his new job. You will reveal to us just what the heck Mike Dunleavy and Steph Curry are going to do about this basketball mess.
And you will reveal to us the grand mystery of what is going to happen with Brock Purdy and the 49ers.
By the time we’re singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ on Dec. 31, 2025 we will know:
— If the 49ers completed their ‘Refreshed, Refueled and Revenge’ world tour and
— What Brock Purdy’s W-2 form will be for purposes of 2025 taxes.
I spent my formative years in the 20th century in a household with parents who were products of a different era. They raised us on old-fashioned things, like getting chewed out, dressing up for holidays and not talking about how much money people made. If you asked me to guess the salary of my Dad or any of our neighbors growing up, it would be like a wild ‘Price Is Right’ guess. No clue.
And yet, here we are in 2025 arguing to the dime how much money Brock Purdy should make for playing football. In fact, it’s the gosh darn central argument surrounding the 49ers. Money has gone from a private, personal issue to every weekday’s “Big Hit” at 750 am on your KNBR radio dial. Or YouTube stream. Or Twitch. Don’t ya know.
One pundit says Purdy gets market value; meaning he should match Dak Prescott’s $60 million annual average value. Nice work if you can get it!
Another pundit asks if you are smoking Levi’s Stadium grass when you say that, and says he should be happy to make half that, based on a 6-11 season that featured statistical regression.
Moderate pundits split the difference and say how about somewhere north of half, and less than Dak?
Still another angle: pay him his $5 million he’s slated to make in 2025, and see how much he earns on the field before you negotiate.
Then you get to the part where you have to ask: What does Brock Purdy want? And what role does Kyle Strongin, his agent, play?
And for all of us asking Purdy to accept a long-term, team-friendly deal that is below-market, I’m sure Strongin and Purdy might ask: Oh, really? Hey, here’s an idea — why don’t YOU go to your boss and ask for less money than the market bears?
Here’s the part where I get to kvetch yet again: None of us became sports fans to discuss salaries, cap hits and annual average values, as I was just saying to Joe Lacob’s apron consultant. The cap complications get so nerdy, a 600-word Jock Blog ain’t gonna explain it. For example, overthecap.com just reported today that the 49ers have $50 million in cap space in 2025, most in the NFL. And yet, we hear the 49ers have cap issues. Like, isn’t there a way to structure Purdy’s contract so the cap hit doesn’t come early and he can still make the McCaffrey-Bosa-Warner-Kittle Super Bowl window stay open?
Don’t ask me. I wouldn’t have made it through junior year advanced algebra without the help (cough, cough) of a guy sitting next to me.
What I do know is my opinion on this whole thing.
Easiest answer is, you do not extend Purdy just yet. You let him play 2025 on his $5 million salary and make him prove to you that he is worth that huge contract.
Problem with that is, if he does what you want and plays great and takes the Niners back to the Super Bowl, that average annual value is going to turn into a rather damaging number. Yesterday’s price is not today’s price; that whole deal.
So the ideal answer is, you sign Purdy to a long-term deal that isn’t a cap-breaking killer. You pitch him on the “Hey, kid — could you ever have guessed that you’d make $1 million a year for playing football? Well, how about you making $45 million to play football? Isn’t that nuts? Sign right here.” I mean, it’s a pitch.
And then the real world answer is, you pay him the market value of a high, high, Dak-ish number and deal with the ramifications: no Dre Greenlaw, for starters.
Which means you better draft beautifully and acquire low-price, high-efficiency talent, as I was just saying to Dom Puni and Malik Mustapha. But we also know how that can go, as I was just saying to my good pals Javon Kinlaw and Jake Moody.
I hate to start 2025 with such a sticky conundrum. Can I offer you a Happy New Year, instead?
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