Per ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the San Francisco 49ers have released fullback Kyle Juszczyk. This is a move that’s not so surprising after General Manager John Lynch was asked about Juszczyk sticking around at the NFL Combine: “We’ll see. We’re thinking of a lot of things right now. We’re trying to make everything work.”

Juszczyk is the longest-tenured player on the roster. He was brought in during the first year of Lynch-Kyle Shanahan’s tenure. He’ll turn 34 in April.

You could see his ineffectiveness as a blocker continue to grow, making it difficult for the running game to get going the way the 49ers had in years past. That’s no slight to Juice, who had an incredibly effective career. He’s 34.

Juszczyk had been trending more and more like a tight end/non-fullback as the years went along, anyway. In 2024, he had 200 snaps in the backfield and 337 snaps everywhere else — 191 of those were as an inline tight end. In 2023, Juszczyk played 604 snaps, and 201 of those came in the backfield.

Those numbers help you appreciate how many different hats Juszczyk wore and how thankless of a job he had. He was often the player going in motion before the snap of the ball. Juice would then be asked to execute a difficult block and follow that up by running a route.

The 49ers want to get younger, and this could be an offensive shift from using a fullback to more of a traditional tight end and 12 personnel sets. That would explain why George Kittle’s backup has an opportunity to earn up to $20 million.

Per Over the Cap, the 49ers will save $2.9 million in cap space this season. Juszczyk will have roughly $6.7 million in dead money spread out over the next four seasons against the Niners’ cap. They’ll eat $3.57 million in dead money this upcoming season.