The long-anticipated Dee Ford release came to pass Wednesday. The 49ers pulled the trigger on cutting the veteran defensive end, moving a player who struggled with injuries throughout his San Francisco tenure off the roster.
Given a lucrative 49ers extension following a Chiefs tag-and-trade sequence in 2019, Ford ran into a number of issues with his second team. The injuries Ford encountered kept him off the field for most of the past two seasons. The former first-round pick played in just seven games from 2020-21.
This move does create just more than $1MM in cap savings for a 49ers team that came into Wednesday sitting 31st in cap space, but it also tags the team with more than $5MM in dead money. Ford’s contract will represent an $8MM-plus cap penalty for the 49ers in 2023. A cut before June 1 would have cost the 49ers more than $14MM in dead money. The 49ers redid Ford’s contract in 2020, 2021 and this year, inflating the dead-money figure. While they will not be rid of Ford cap hits until 2024, the team has finally moved on from a player who ran into a batch of bad breaks with his second NFL team.
More to come.