Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch have the cap room, the job security, the draft capital and the working quarterback expertise.
They just don't have a QB. Any QB.
Yep, after Colin Kaepernick's long-assumed opt-out last week, the 49ers have zero signed quarterbacks currently on their roster, and that is several less than ideal.
But all of this probably is not a terrible thing for the 49ers' new power tandem as they head home from the NFL Combine and right into free agency this week.
(Teams can start talking to free agents Tuesday, deals will start to get done immediately but unofficially, and players can officially sign the deals on Thursday.
(The 49ers have over $90M in cap room currently, second-most in the league behind only Cleveland, and can easily create more by jettisoning a few veterans.
(The Yorks, I believe, have authorized Lynch and Shanahan to spend healthily _ Lynch and Shanahan wouldn't have taken the jobs if they were hamstrung financially in any way; I've reported that Jed York actually would've liked former GM Trent Baalke to spend a little more last year, but Baalke always disliked first-wave free agency.)
This is the true practical kickoff to the Lynch/Shanahan era, and they have the NFL's blankest slate at the QB position.
They've got nothing _ most times that's obviously bad, and sometimes it's better than you think; the 49ers have no current QB ties, no financial commitments, no emotional commitments, no we-drafted-him-two-years-ago-we-still-think-he-might-be-OK commitments.
Blank slate. Re-do. They can acquire three or four QBs, and each guy will start fresh and each guy will be Shanahan/Lynch guys, completely.
If they know what they're doing, and I will presume that Shanahan does, since he has done just fine with this position in the past, then the 49ers have the aggressor's advantage in this coming period.
They can afford to make a mistake or two, if it's a reasonable one, and other teams looking for a QB (or trying to decide what to do with their own QB) know that the 49ers are sitting there, with all this cash and all this job security for the coach and GM.
If Shanahan and Lynch are as smart about it, this can be used to some significant extent and I'm going to specifically point towards a possible leverage play for Washington's Kirk Cousins, who bonded with Shanahan when Shanahan was Washington's offensive coordinator a few years ago.
This doesn't mean the 49ers absolutely will end up with Cousins; that's up to Washington, which franchise-tagged him for the second time (slating him for a $24M salary in 2017) and could just keep him on-board for this season.
And this doesn't mean Shanahan and Lynch only have eyes for Cousins; they could aim for New England's Jimmy Garoppolo in a similar trade-and-sign situation, and there are other potential targets, or they could use the No. 2 overall pick for a QB who would start immediately or at least immediately become the Future of the Franchise, or they could sign a veteran placeholder and just wait another year.
But Cousins is absolutely the No. 1 on that board, IMO, and Shanahan and Lynch have the juice right now to be a big influence on this situation rather quickly, I believe. They already are affecting it.
Two truths as they start this QB process:
_Shanahan and Lynch both received six-year contracts from the Yorks, and I believe neither includes an offset clause (which means the Yorks are on the hook for the full value of both deals even if they fire both and both get other jobs in football during the life of the deals);
_The six-year deals are just about unprecedented for a new GM/coach pairing, and they give Shanahan and Lynch an immense amount of security, the kind of security that means they can skip over the worst instant-gratification tendencies of the NFL free-agent market.
Because Shanahan and Lynch can be patient about this entire rebuild process without fear of getting fired in a year or two, they have much more leverage than your usual rookie coach/rookie GM duo... or just about anybody not named Bill Belichick or Pete Carroll.
I'm talking about NFL patience as power.
For instance, Shanahan and Lynch can wait out Washington for Cousins, if they are so inclined, by letting Washington management know that if the 49ers can't get Cousins this time around, they can swing back in 2018 and get him for less or for nothing.
The 49ers can wait. Can Washington?
Shanahan and Lynch can bide their time for the right deal... if Cousins is the guy they want... or if they can't get Cousins, they can afford to keep mulling their options and might pull their trigger on somebody else.
Or they can tell Washington _ we have a deal in place for somebody else, you either make the deal with us now or never. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Washington knows this _ well, I think Washington knows this, but things are so crazy with that management these days, making any supposition about Washington's thought-process right now is a bit tricky.
Obviously, Washington hasn't signed Cousins to a long-term deal by now, so each successive day edges them closer to next year, when they will either have to commit to yet another monster one-year contract ($34M for a franchise tag next year)... or let Cousins become available to other teams (either via the non-exclusive tag or just letting him go)...
And if Washington keeps Cousins this season on the tag, they will have paid him over $40M over the last two seasons... and he'll still be a free agent next year.
That's not great value. The QBs who get the monster money tend to be signed up long-term _ the value for teams is having these guys locked up over a long period, and they will pay the huge money to have security at that position.
Which is exactly the opposite of what Washington has with Cousins right now.
If Washington isn't sure what to do with him now, and whether he's worth a mega-deal (and I do understand why they wouldn't be sure), how much more sure will they be in 2018, when the 49ers will have even more leverage on them?
That gives Shanahan and Lynch a way to pressure for a deal, especially because everybody in the NFL also knows that Cousins will also almost certainly have to agree to a new deal if he changes teams (to make sure the new team doesn't go through the same thing again next year)...
And that Cousins is likeliest to sign a long-term deal with the 49ers. Oh, and the 49ers have all that cap-room to do it with.
