Shortly after word broke late Thursday night that the San Francisco 49ers were acquiring star running back Christian McCaffrey from the Carolina Panthers, ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler called McCaffrey “a one-year rental on a cheap contract for San Francisco.”
49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan made it clear during a Friday morning appearance on San Francisco sports radio station KNBR that isn’t the case.
“Yes,” Shanahan responded when asked if he plans for McCaffrey to be with the organization past the ongoing season, per David Bonilla of 49ers WebZone. “This is not a rental. I mean, that’s the stuff that is tough too where we did that with Emmanuel (Sanders) in the year (2019) we were trying to make the run. We didn’t want it to be a rental. I mean, he was someone we were really hoping to re-sign the next year. But you realize, just going through that, I realized how difficult that is.
“So that was something that you think about in this time. And that was something that, at least for me and definitely (general manager John Lynch), that was so much more enticing, knowing if we got him, just contractually and stuff, he’s going to be here. We don’t have to be risking this come February.”
McCaffrey put pen to paper on a four-year, $64 million extension before the 2020 campaign that technically has him signed through the 2025 season, but it’s nevertheless easy to see why Fowler offered his take. As Jason Fitzgerald noted for Over the Cap, the only guaranteed money left on McCaffrey’s deal is $1 million for injury in 2023.
Fitzgerald added that McCaffrey’s contract carries a salary of $12 million next year and that the 49ers likely will redo the deal to decrease the financial burden that will come with keeping the 26-year-old around for more than a few months.
