The 49ers have agreed to sign wide receiver Pierre Garcon, according to Chris Mortensen of ESPN.com (on Twitter). It’s expected to be a three-year contract that pays about $23MM over the first two years with a ~$12MM signing bonus, Mike Garafolo of NFL.com tweets. League sources tell Mortensen that Garcon will earn $16MM in the first year of the contract. 
As one of the best wide receivers on the open market, Garcon was expected to fetch a nice payday for himself. However, it’s perhaps a little surprising to see him land $16MM in effectively guaranteed money. Garcon will turn 31 in August and he hasn’t been used to stretch the field in recent years with DeSean Jackson running the bulk of the deep routes.
I had Garcon ranked as the seventh-best available wide receiver on the market, behind Alshon Jeffery, Terrelle Pryor, Kenny Stills, Kenny Britt, DeSean Jackson, and Brandon Marshall. However, I slotted him ahead of Jackson and Marshall on my Top 50 list, which rates players by earning power. So far, that prediction is looking good. Marshall signed a two-year, $12MM deal with the Giants on Wednesday morning.
Garcon drew substantial interest on the open market but will reunite with former Redskins OC Kyle Shanahan. He had his best statistical year in Shanahan’s final season at the controls, going for 113 catches, 1,346 yards and five touchdowns in 2013.
Garcon played out his entire five-year, $42MM Redskins contract and proved not to be a Peyton Manning creation. His production increased at times after moving from Indianapolis to Washington. Garcon posted 1,000-yard seasons in 2013 and ’16 and surpassed 700 in both 2014 and ’15. Last season, Kirk Cousins‘ near-5,000-yard season included 79 Garcon receptions and three touchdowns.
Photo courtesy of PFR on Instagram.
Heck yea. Stoked! He was one of the receivers I was hoping they’d sign. I hope they still go after Pryor. If they can’t bring in Pryor I’d be happy if they brought back Boldin.
Skins fan here but for 16m let him walk. Garçon is a great player who can run all kinds of routes but he’s 31. Too many need on the defensive side of the ball to drop 16m on him
Please get Pryor and Bouye now.
$16M!?!? Wow….
Skins fan. Love Garcon, a true warrior, but let’s be honest. Not a true #1. Inside routes and does not stretch the field. He gets most of his yards after the catch. Not sure how many more years his 31 yr old body can continue to operate like this. Would have loved for the Skins to keep him, but we would have been laughed out of the league if we payed him $16 large for 2017 season.
The $16 million is a lot, but that might also be most, if not all, of the guaranteed money. Stacking all the guaranteed money in the first year or two gives them a relatively quick and cheap out if he doesn’t play well. Better that than being stuck with a bad contract for three or four years while the team waits for the dead money to decrease.
They’re probably going to front load his contract cause they have all the extra cap money to use. I’m curious to see how many years and how much it desculates in cost.
Its a start for the Niners, now they need to get a couple more young top free agents to build on and have a solid draft.
16 million???!!!
Ok they have a wr but no one to throw the ball to him
Glad I’m not a Niners fan
I remember reading a pretty impressive argument that Garcon was the worst starting QB Manning ever had to play with. So I would assume he wasn’t a PM creation and perhaps got better later.
I meant to say Garcon was a WR, not QB, of course.