San Francisco 49ers fans probably should have expected this exodus.
The 49ers never were going to bring back Charvarius Ward, not after inking cornerback Deommodore Lenoir to a new contract in November and not after Ward shared how traumatic it felt to be in the Bay Area following the death of his 1-year-old daughter in October.
They weren’t going to pony up for safety Talanoa Hufanga, not after two injury-filled seasons and after Malik Mustapha looked so good as a rookie last season.
Kyle Juszczyk’s departure — he was informed that the team will release him — isn’t a shock, either. Not after the 49ers asked him to take a pay cut last year and after general manager John Lynch’s vague response when asked recently about the fullback’s future.
“We’ll see,” Lynch said at the NFL Scouting Combine. “We’re thinking of a lot of things right now. We’re trying to make everything work.”
And try as they might, there was always a better than 50 percent chance that linebacker Dre Greenlaw would be gone, too. Incoming defensive coordinator Robert Saleh and others tried hard to convince Greenlaw to stay. The argument was: Stick around with buddy Fred Warner for one more season and we’ll finish what we started in 2019, Greenlaw’s first season in San Francisco and one that ended with the Super Bowl.
Greenlaw instead took a three-year, $35 million deal with the Denver Broncos that gives him the chance to be the star of the Broncos’ linebacking corps. The Athletic’s Nick Kosmider speculated that Greenlaw would play inside in Denver’s 3-4 defense and become the lone linebacker when the defense switches to five-lineman fronts. Being the centerpiece of a defense — and all the riches that come with that — is something Greenlaw never could have achieved with Warner as his teammate.
A quiet opening to free agency week seemed to be in the offing after Lynch recently emphasized how much money the 49ers have spent in recent years — “I think we’re the fourth highest cash spending team,” he said — and that the team has one of the oldest rosters in the league.
49ers’ free-agent exodus was expected, but that doesn’t mean it won’t hurt
