You can never have enough cap space, and with the San Francisco 49ers in need of money to re-sign five starters heading into free agency, cutting Carlos Rogers, penned to be the team’s highest paid player next season, seems like a reasonable idea.
The 32-year old cornerback is scheduled to make $6.6 million next season, delivering a $8.1 million cap hit. Of all the players making big money for the 49ers next season, Rogers seems like the one most likely to be cut. The 49ers tried to make him take a paycut last offseason, but Rogers had leverage after Chris Culliver tore his ACL in the preaseason. This time, Rogers doesn’t have the same bargaining power to begin with.
Rogers played more defensive snaps than anyone else on the roster last season, as the nine-year veteran finished with 2 interceptions and 8 deflected passes. He was pretty much in the same form of 2012, but is clearly not the same player who signed with the Niners before the 2011 season, and by releasing him and taking $3.6 million off the cap the Niners can do a world of good when it comes to new players. The Niners will probably approach him about a pay-cut before actually releasing him, but it’s not going to be too much of a surprise to see Rogers playing for someone else next season.
One thing important to keep in mind is the Colin Kaepernick situation, who is making $1.6 million but the Niners are going to try and extend his contract, which means that they’re going to need every cent they save to re-sign a quarterback who has shown, more or less, he deserves to be called their franchise quarterback, even though he hasn’t gotten rid of his habit to make some costly mistakes. There’s always the option of slapping the franchise tag on him if that day arrives, but considering it was $16 million last season for QBs, getting a deal done as quickly as possible is in the Niners best interests.