Accounting errors will cost the San Francisco 49ers a fifth-round draft pick in 2025 and move one of their fourth-round picks this year back a few spots.
Per NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, the 49ers are forfeiting their 2025 fifth-rounder after the NFL discovered “administrative payroll accounting errors” at the end of the 2022 league year resulting in a “misreporting of the club’s cumulative player compensation.”
Pelissero noted the league’s evaluation determined the 49ers would have remained under the salary cap throughout the year and there was no intent to circumvent the cap.
In addition to forfeiting next year’s fifth-rounder, the 49ers’ fourth-round selection at No. 131 this year will be moved behind the three compensatory picks at the end of the round to No. 135 overall.
It’s unclear how far off the 49ers’ reporting of their player compensation was with what it actually wound up being.
Per the NFLPA’s public salary cap report, the Niners ranked eighth among all NFC teams in cash spending on their roster during the 2022 season.
Per Spotrac, the 49ers finished the season $6.4 million under the cap. They did make several notable moves throughout 2022, including signing Deebo Samuel to a three-year extension worth up to $73.5 million prior to training camp.
They also acquired Christian McCaffrey from the Carolina Panthers in October 2022. Jason Fitzgerald of Over the Cap noted at the time of the deal that San Francisco was only taking on $690,000 in base salary for the remainder of the season.
While the loss of a future draft pick isn’t nothing, this punishment pales in comparison to what the 49ers organization dealt with in 2000. The league began investigating the franchise in July 1999 for potential salary-cap violations under then-owner Eddie DeBartolo and former team president Carmen Policy.
After the NFL concluded its investigation, the 49ers were fined $300,000 and forfeited a fifth-round draft pick in 2001 and a third-rounder in 2002. The violations included tight end Brent Jones being promised a bonus outside the cap for doing offseason work in an attempt to help the club get a new stadium built.
49ers legend Dwight Clark, who was working in the front office as vice president and director of football operations from 1995 to ’98, had a verbal agreement with the agents for Jim Druckenmiller, who was the team’s first-round pick in 1997, to renegotiate his contract within three years if he became their starting quarterback during that time.
The 49ers still own 10 picks in the 2024 draft. Their fourth-round selections will be at No. 124 from the Dallas Cowboys as part of the Trey Lance trade, No. 132 as a compensatory pick and No. 135.
