When San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan and general manager John Lynch spoke earlier this week, they had no issues going into detail…until it came to topics involving wide receiver Jauan Jennings.
Lynch said that Jennings is making progress as he works through his calf issue, and that he was unsure if we’d see Jennings in Week 1. Most of the follow-up questions Lynch received were one-sentence answers.
Lynch acknowledged that Jennings’ calf injury was worse than the team initially had thought, but it was like pulling teeth to extract any other information out of Lynch.
Lynch confirmed that Jauan asked for a trade, but replied, “I’m not getting into when it was.” And when pressed about negotiations, Lynch said, “We keep those things behind the scenes, we have throughout the offseason, and we’ll leave it at that.”
The San Francisco Standard’s Tim Kawakami appeared on 95.7 The Game to share what he’s hearing about Jennings’ contract on Thursday:
What you hear, not from the camp but from NFL circles, is that it’s high. It’s above $20 million, is what I’ve heard. And maybe a lot above 20 a year, to put him in the top 20 or so receivers — in that realm. The 49ers have done it before with Brandon Aiyuk, so there is precedent for lifting a guy way up on the higher ranks of the receiver salaries.
I have a few thoughts about the above quote. First off, if true, hats off to you, Jauan. Shooters shoot. Mike Evans is making $20.5 million annually. He’s projected to be a Hall of Famer.
Three teams in the NFL are paying north of $20 million annually to two receivers on the same team. The Bengals are paying Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins. Objectively, two WR1s on any team in any scheme with any quarterback. The same is true for Philadelphia Eagles wideouts A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith. Lastly, the Washington Commanders are paying Terry McLaurin and could afford to absorb Deebo Samuel’s contract because they have a quarterback on a rookie deal.
Is anybody putting Jennings, even after what he accomplished last season, in the same tier as those receivers above? Unlikely. You don’t see opposing defenses roll coverage toward Jennings the same way they do with Chase or Brown. Respectfully, Jennings is more of a product of his environment, aka Kyle Shanahan’s scheme, than the next big-time receiver in this league.
In the same breath, somebody leaked this to Kawakami, knowing that it would paint Jennings in a bad light. It’s the nasty side of the business. You put information out there to the media that a player wants roughly double what he’s worth, and fans will look at that number, scoff, and want nothing to do with Jennings.
Here’s more from Kawakami, this time, from the 49ers perspective:
What I’ve heard from the 49ers side, in the air on that one, is that they don’t want to do anything. They are negotiating. I think there have been numbers exchanged, but they just redid his deal last year, and that’s before the yards receiving. That’s before he was the first receiver, basically, last year when Aiyuk got hurt. That’s before a lot of other things happened. If you ask me what the dollars are, I would tell you, just from my opinion, is that it’s not close. It’s not even close.
Now, at some point, you’ve got to either make a deal or not, and the 49ers want him on the field on Week 1. And Jauan Jennings probably doesn’t want to go on the injured reserve or get deactivated or whatever could happen in the next few days if he’s not practicing. But everything I’ve heard is that he wants a lot, and the 49ers are offering very little. It’s not close, and it’s pretty clear it’s not close still.
If you’re the 49ers, you have Ricky Pearsall. You’ll get Demarcus Robinson back in three games, and Brandon Aiyuk a month after that. From a macro perspective, what sense does it make to pay Jennings anything more than $10 million?
I always side with the player, but in this instance, it doesn’t seem like the player has much of an argument. If you’ve been in the NFL for four years, and you have consistently been below a number 500 receiving yards, and there’s an outlier season in 2024 — he was the only option for Brock Purdy — what proof is there that last season is sustainable?
That’s not to say Jennings is worthless. He brings plenty to the table and has saved the 49ers on numerous occasions. He has a role, and that is converting third and medium-ish situations. Will that be Pearsall this year? During the preseason, Robinson seemed like he’d be an upgrade. The problem is that there are question marks outside of those two, and Jennings would be the missing piece on a team that relies on three wide receiver sets more than any other personnel grouping that they run.
It’s not an easy situation for either side to be in. No news would be surprising, from Jennings landing on the Injured Reserve to his returning to practice next week. We’ll see what happens, but it’s safe to say we can eliminate the outcome of Jennings receiving Mike Evans’ money.
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