12:15pm: False alarm. On Wednesday morning, Ford explained that he sent a goodbye text to his teammates since he was en route to off-campus injury rehab. That text was misinterpreted by at least one of his teammates as a farewell, hence the earlier report.
“The articles saying I told my teammates I expected to be released are false,” Ford told Mike Silver of NFL.com (Twitter link). “I’m going to be getting rehab and taking the time needed to get back and I was saying goodbye to the boys because I wouldn’t be in the building. We are still rolling. We’re just taking the time needed.”
9:04am: Earlier this week, we learned that Dee Ford is unlikely to return from the injured reserve list this year. With that, the veteran edge rusher is expecting to be released by the 49ers, perhaps as soon as today (via PFT).
[RELATED: 49ers DT D.J. Jones On Future]
“That’s something I never can predict,” head coach Kyle Shanahan said when asked about Ford’s outlook. “But I’ll be surprised if he’s back. I think we’ll just have to continue playing without him.”
The 49ers traded for Ford during the 2019 offseason and saw him play a key role in their Super Bowl LIV run as a part-timer. Unfortunately, he’s been limited to just 18 regular season games in SF over the last two seasons and change.
Ford’s original deal was a five-year, $85MM deal. In March, he agreed to scale it down to a two-year pact worth $24MM. If the Niners cut him, they’ll save $2.09MM on the 2022 books with $9.8MM left in dead money.
The former first-round pick has played in just six games this year and hasn’t taken the field since Oct. 24th. He was productive while healthy, however, tallying three sacks to bring his career total to 40.
Perhaps the Steelers could bring him in?
Any team would be signing him with next year in mind if it’s not likely he’ll return this year. Saleh may want him on the Jets.
Props to Brett Veatch for knowing when to move on.
You move on when there’s no guaranteed money left on the deal. This is poor asset management.
headfake
Might as well keep him for 2 million. Even if you got 4 games out of him next year it’s probably worth the cost
seriously just stash him til the playoffs if they even sniff them
So many bogus stories come from unnamed sources who have agendas or agents who are strategically leaking the narrative they want out there. It’s funny to see a bogus story come from a teammate misunderstanding a text.
Email was the result of the significant expectations team has for Dee Ford’s replacement:
DEE CHEVROLET !!