The writing isn’t just on the wall for Deebo Samuel.
It’s on the floor and ceiling, too.
You can’t miss it. Not after Tuesday.
That’s when 49ers and running back Christian McCaffrey agreed to a contract extension, which, in effect, adds a year to his contract and tosses him a bit more money in the process.
It’s a strange deal, but it sends a clear-as-day message to Samuel — this is your last year in Santa Clara.
The McCaffrey deal means little, if anything in Brandon Aiyuk’s contract extension talks, of which we should not expect any imminent resolution given the insane inflation in the wide receiver market. You can blame Amon-Ra St. Brown (four years, $120 million) and Justin Jefferson (four years, $140 million) for contract negotiations between Aiyuk and the Niners looking all the more likely to drag deep into the summer and perhaps even the fall.
But that deal will get done.
And in a league with a hard salary cap, and for a team that must budget roughly $50 million — at least 20 percent of the cap — for its quarterback after the 2025 season, only so many players can be paid top-of-the-market.
You can only afford so many weapons.
Fred Warner, George Kittle, Nick Bosa, and Trent Williams are all paid at or near the top of their respective positions. Aiyuk will soon be, as well, making more than $30 million per season. McCaffrey re-set the running back market again, and will likely remain at the top until at least 2026, his age-30 season. Purdy might sign the most annually lucrative contract in NFL history this time next year.
It all adds up to a whole lot of money.
And while the NFL’s salary cap keeps going up, it’s not growing nearly fast enough to keep up with these kinds of costs.
Cuts are going to have to be made.
The attrition started this past offseason, when defensive tackle Arik Armstead was jettisoned. It should be no surprise that McCaffrey and the 49ers came to a new deal in June — Armstead officially came off the Niners’ books on the first.
Samuel, who signed a three-year, $73.5 million extension before the 2022 season, is, unquestionably, next. (And he’s unlikely to be alone.)
In fact, it’s a bit of a surprise Samuel is still on the team. The 49ers were openly shopping him this past offseason and had serious traction on a trade to send him to the AFC before the draft.
Ultimately, that deal fell apart and the Niners — still hellbent on winning the Super Bowl — opted to keep Samuel for the 2024 season. They’re a better team with him.
“It was a thing, at first,” Samuel said Tuesday of the trade talk. “But we’ve moved past it.”
But it doesn’t take a Rhodes scholar to see what happens next. McCaffrey was paid, despite there not being a serious need. Aiyuk will be paid. Purdy is about to secure a — as the cool kids say — bag.
This is the last dance for the now-No. 1.
And to the receiver’s credit, he’s not pretending that’s not the case.
“At the end of the day, the contract was signed, I know what I signed up for, and we’re just focused on this year,” Samuel said Tuesday.
If Samuel has a big year, he might force the 49ers to reconsider the seemingly inevitable — they can find the money elsewhere on the roster. At the very least, he’d ensure another large contract is waiting for him on the other side of a release or trade next spring (though any release would carry a post-June 1 designation).
The era of free-wheeling spending is over for the 49ers. A period of austerity is about to come.
And in the meantime, San Francisco is locking up the players they want to carry into this new era. Favorites are being picked; priorities established.
Samuel is part of the 49ers present, but he’s not part of the team’s future.
And he’d be the first to tell you “That’s just business.”
Cold, ruthless, but ultimately smart business.
And for the 49ers, there’s going to be a whole lot more of it in the days, weeks, months, and years to come.