Dee Ford Deal Could Be Complicating DeForest Buckner Talks
- The last we heard, the 49ers and DeForest Buckner had not made much progress in extension talks, and Joel Corry of CBS Sports says that the contract San Francisco gave to Dee Ford after acquiring him via trade could be complicating Buckner negotiations (Twitter link). The club is set on using a team-friendly structure just like it always does — and just as it did with Ford — and it will not change its M.O. for Buckner, which is surely a sticking point for 2016’s No. 7 overall pick.
49ers Sign Robbie Gould To Extension
The 49ers’ long saga with Robbie Gould has a happy ending. On Monday, the 49ers agreed to sign the kicker to a four-year, $19MM deal, as Tom Pelissero of NFL.com tweets. 
The deal includes $10.5MM fully guaranteed at signing, representing locked in salaries for the first two seasons of the deal. After that, the Niners must decide whether to fully guarantee half of his $4.5MM salary for 2021 before Week 16 of 2020 season, and the other half by the following April.
It’s rare for the 49ers to give fully guaranteed salaries through year two, which shows how much they value Gould. The 36-year-old has nailed 72 of 75 field goal tries since joining the 49ers in 2017, positioning him as one of the very best kickers in the game.
Gould requested a trade in April to bring him closer to his family, which many read as a push to return to Chicago. The 49ers, however, held firm and refused to deal him.
Before the deal, Gould was scheduled to play the 2019 season on his one-year, $5MM franchise tag tender.
Bears Not Only Team On Gould's Wish List
Robbie Gould said this week he and the 49ers have been negotiating a contract for well over a year. Unless the sides can come to terms by Monday’s deadline for franchise-tagged players to sign extensions, he will be tethered to the 49ers at the current kicker tag rate of $5MM. He has requested a trade and been mulling a holdout.
“We’ve been negotiating for 17 months and it’s been a complicated situation,” Gould said, via NBC Sports Bay Area’s Josh Schrock. “I’m at the point where my agent is going to handle it. If there’s anything I need to know about, then I’ll make a decision.”
The 36-year-old kicker has hit 72 of 75 field goal tries since joining the 49ers in 2017. The trade request Gould made led many to believe he wanted to return to Chicago, where his family resides. But the 15th-year specialist clarified that seeking a spot closer to his family does not necessarily mean solely seeking a Bears reunion. Though, the dot-connecting between Gould the kicker-starved Bears — for whom he played from 2005-15 — is rather easy.
Jimmy Garoppolo Expects To Be Ready For Training Camp
Jimmy Garoppolo‘s 2018 campaign ended prematurely when he suffered a torn ACL in Week 3, but the 49ers quarterback expects to be fully ready for training camp, according to Charean Williams of Pro Football Talk.
“I really do,” Garoppolo said when asked if he thinks he’ll be available for camp. “The rehab process has gone really well. Knock on wood. We haven’t had any setbacks. OTAs went about as well as I could have hoped for and now for training camp hopefully we’ll be full go with team drills and all that stuff. We’re moving in the right direction. We’ve just got to keep going day by day and keep stacking them together. It’s a long process, but we’ve come this far, so why stop now, right?”
Perhaps more importantly, Garoppolo doesn’t expect to begin training camp on the physically unable to perform list. Not only does that mean the 27-year-old shouldn’t have any physical limitations as he begins practice sessions, but he also won’t be eligible to be placed on the reserve/PUP list, which would have forced him to miss the first six games of the regular season. Given that he threw passes during organized team activities, Garoppolo never seemed like a realistic candidate for the PUP list.
Garoppolo posted an undefeated record in five starts after the 49ers acquired him from the Patriots in 2017. In 2018, he started three games, completing 59.6% of his passers for 718 yards, five touchdowns, three interceptions, and a dismal 26.9 Total Quarterback Rating.
49ers’ Robbie Gould Mulling Holdout
When the 49ers convene for training camp later this month, kicker Robbie Gould might not be on hand, as Cam Inman of the Mercury News writes. Gould continues to push for a trade and offered no assurance that he’ll join his teammates if he doesn’t get his way in the next couple of weeks.
“I’m not going to commit to making any decision right now,” said Gould while at a celebrity golf tournament in Nevada.
The Gould/Niners saga has been going on for some time. For a while, the kicker pushed for a return to the Bears. The 49ers, however, did not blink, and subsequently hit him with the $5MM franchise tender. Gould continues to say that he will not sign the tender with the implication being that he will not be a happy camper in SF unless he is given a lucrative multi-year deal.
“I don’t really have a plan right now,” Gould said. “Obvious there is a deadline and I don’t have to make any decisions anytime soon. … The deadline to sign a long-term contract is Monday, and the rest of that (potential holdout) is up to me.”
Gould’s other options consist of skipping training camp, waiting until Week 1 to start his $5MM deal, waiting as late as Week 10 to earn a prorated salary, or sitting out the entire season, a la Le’Veon Bell.
Publicly, the Niners continue to say that they are focused on hammering out a long-term deal for Gould.
NFL Supplemental Draft Order
The NFL’s Supplemental Draft order does not go by the inverted win/loss records of clubs. Instead, the order is dictated by a weighted lottery that uses a team’s win percentage as just part of the equation. Here, via Tom Pelissero of NFL.com (Twitter link) is the complete order of the supplemental draft:
1. Lions
2. Broncos
3. Jets
4. Cardinals
5. Giants
6. Bills
7. Raiders
8. 49ers
9. Jaguars
10. Packers
11. Bengals
12. Bucs
13. Falcons
14. Vikings
15. Redskins
16. Titans
17. Dolphins
18. Steelers
19. Panthers
20. Browns
21. Ravens
22. Patriots
23.Cowboys
24. Seahawks
25. Eagles
26. Texans
27. Bears
28. Colts
29. Saints
30. Chiefs
31. Chargers
32. Rams
The supplemental draft is conducted via email. If multiple teams submit a pick for the same player in the same round, this order dictates which club gets the player. Of course, any team picking a player in the supplemental draft will sacrifice the corresponding pick in the 2020 draft.
Frank Gore Not Yet Considering Retirement
Frank Gore, 36, has the fourth-most rushing yards in league history (14,748), and he could surpass the legendary Barry Sanders for third place on the all-time list this season. But while he continues to defy the odds for running backs, Gore said he is not yet contemplating retirement.
Gore, via David Furones of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, said, “I just go how I feel. If I feel I can’t do it no more, then I call it.”
Oftentimes, players in the latter stages of their career proclaim that a given year will be their last in the league, even if they end up backtracking later. Gore, though, will apparently keep the legs churning until he feels his body can’t take it anymore.
And for good reason. Last year, in his one and only season with his hometown Dolphins, Gore managed 4.6 yards per carry off of 156 attempts and added 12 catches for 124 yards. He no longer profiles as a workhorse back, but he’s still quite productive when used in the right measure. And given that the Bills have a large stable of running backs, headed by veteran LeSean McCoy, Buffalo will likely be able to keep Gore on a pitch count that maximizes his effectiveness.
Gore said he signed with the Bills — the first cold weather team he has suited up for — because of how much they showed they wanted him. He said, “[i]t was the second year where they came after me. They showed that they wanted me again. In this league, especially at my age, you want to be wanted. That’s a factor that [went into the decision], especially coming off an injury.”
When he does hang up the cleats, Gore said he will retire as a member of the 49ers, who selected him in the third round of the 2005 draft and with whom Gore spent the first 10 years of his career. Even if he does not play for San Francisco again, Gore will sign a one-day contract with the team when the time comes.
Gore is a five-time Pro Bowler but has yet to win a Super Bowl (though he came close in 2012). If he wants a ring before he retires, he will likely have to play at least one more year, as the Bills do not profile as championship contenders this year.
This Date In Transactions History: NFL Suspends Reuben Foster
With the draft and the first waves of NFL free agency in the rear view mirror, the days leading up to the 4th of July aren’t necessarily a hotbed of activity. However, the league office has been known to use these slow days as an ideal time to release word of suspensions for noteworthy players. 
That’s what the suits at 345 Park Ave. did on this date in 2018 when they banned 49ers linebacker Reuben Foster for the first two games of the regular season. The move, to put it mildly, was controversial – just a few weeks prior, Foster was facing jail time for accusations of domestic abuse against his former girlfriend. Had he been convicted, the club said that he would have been cut. But, after Foster avoided felony convictions, he kept his spot on the roster and the league determined that he would only miss contests against the Vikings and Lions before returning to the active roster on Sept. 17.
This was, admittedly, a tricky situation for the NFL. Initially, his on-and-off girlfriend testified that Foster had beaten her and thrown her down stairs. But, later, she claimed that she fabricated allegations against Foster and actually suffered her visible injuries during a fight with another woman.
Critics of the two-game ban were quick to compare Foster’s situation to the league’s handling of Ezekiel Elliott in 2017. Elliott was accused of multiple instances of domestic violence by a former partner, but was never criminally charged in connection to those events. After conducting their own investigation, the league moved to ban Elliott for six games.
Elliott fought his suspension, but Foster did not.
“I accept the League’s decision and am sorry that my mistakes have hurt my team,” Foster said in a statement released by the Niners. “I have a responsibility to the 49ers, our fans and our community, and I am committed to learning from this situation and making better choices in the future. The support I have received over the last five months has been humbling, and I do not take it for granted.”
When Foster was accused of abusing Ennis yet again in November of 2018, the 49ers followed through on their promise to release him. The Redskins pounced, claiming him off waivers days later and expressing confidence that he would not receive another suspension. They were right – the league docked Foster two game checks for the 2019 season but declined to sideline him for any games.
On the same day as Foster’s ban, the league also rejected Julian Edelman‘s appeal and handed Packers running back Aaron Jones a two-game suspension for a substance abuse policy violation. With the statuses of Elliott (again) and Tyreek Hill up in the air, we could see a similar torrent of news today.
Release Candidate: 49ers G Joshua Garnett
Few were surprised when the 49ers declined guard Joshua Garnett‘s fifth-year option for the 2020 season. The former first-round pick still has one year to go on his original four-year rookie deal, but it’s not a given that he’ll be with the club in 2019. 
[RELATED: 49ers Attend Workout For Supplemental Draft Prospect]
The Niners used the No. 28 pick to select Garnett in 2016, but they’ve yet to see much from him at the pro level. The Stanford product started in eleven of his 15 games as a rookie, but even then, his performance was underwhelming – Garnett racked up penalties and didn’t excel in run blocking or pass blocking. He then missed all of 2017 after undergoing knee surgery and only saw action as a reserve in seven games last year. At a rate of $10.35MM, it made little sense to keep Garnett for 2020, especially since the option would have been guaranteed for injury.
This year, Garnett is said to be healthy, but that ensures little in terms of performance. If he stumbles in training camp this year, the Niners could conceivably cut him to save $1.7MM against $1.2MM in dead money.
For now, Garnett will push to beat out Mike Person for a starting job on the interior line. Ultimately, however, he could be pushed off of the 53-man roster altogether.
Marcus Simms Works Out For Teams
Former West Virginia wide receiver Marcus Simms worked out for half of the NFL’s teams on Monday, according to Tony Pauline of DraftAnalyst.com. The Jaguars, Saints, Seahawks, Colts, Jets, Redskins, Chiefs, Browns, Eagles, Lions, Packers, 49ers, Vikings, Ravens, Raiders, and Falcons.
[RELATED: The 2019 NFL Supplemental Draft, So Far]
The 49ers and Vikings both sent directors of scouting while the Ravens had their personnel director on hand. The Raiders, meanwhile, had general manager Mike Mayock on hand, which may be an indicator of strong interest.
Simms’ 40-yard-dash times of 4.49, 4.45 and 4.40 seconds were strong, while his 36 inch vertical showed decent hops for the position. While he’s not considered to be as strong of a pro prospect as Washington State safety Jalen Thompson, Simms has a chance at being selected when the NFL Supplemental Draft takes place later this month.