When you approach the edge of the cliff, you have a choice to either keep going or turn around.
With Quinn’s roster, there was a choice . . . a bad choice and a good choice.
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You’re memory is a lot better than mine. I don’t recall the salary cap hell of the 49ers, but I didn’t become fascinated by the cap until 1999 or 2000.
Here are two interesting articles on the 49ers. That talk about what they did when the Cap started in 1994 and when they entered cap hell in 1998.
https://athlonsports.com/nfl/nfl-salary-cap-turns-25-matter-survival-standard-operating-procedure
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Holmes only cut players that created cap space with their release… such as Coleman, Trufant, Daniel, Owens, Shelton, and J. Jones.
The only way he could have had more cap space in 2021 would have been to restructure those bad contracts… which would have set the rebuild back several years.
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My points is that your recollection of events is slightly off, which is creating a memory that didn’t quite happen like that. For instance Eric Davis left after the 1995 season. The newly formed Panthers were flush with cash so the 49ers got outbid (Davis was a free agent). The other guys you named like Stubblefied and Merton Hanks were on the 1996 and 1997 teams. Stubblefield moved on in free agency while Hanks was still on the team for the 1998 season. Hanks then moved on to Seattle where he only made 1 start and then he retired. Stubblefield played 1998, 1999 and 2000 with the Redskins before returning to the 49ers.
Where I think your memory is getting mixed up with is the big purge and rebuild they did around 2000. The 1999 season was a bad one because a 38 year old Steve Young got hurt for most of the season, and it was clear he was at the end of his career. To them that also meant purging aging veterans instead of holding onto them for 1 more run for glory. So going into the 2000 season Steve retired and they got rid of guys like Lee Woodall, Ken Norton and Tim McDonald. They gave Jerry Rice 2001 as a fairwell tour before moving on from him.
The salary cap will always factor in. Particularly when a team is coming off of no limit spending. However, your memory of the 49ers being forced into a rebuild due to salary cap hell is slight off from reality. They had a bunch of aging vets at the end of their time in the league and when they lost their star QB to retirement they shifted gears.
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You made my point for me…thank you! 
No… he just showed that a team made roster decisions over a 5 year period of time. That is not a “purge” caused by salary-cap hell.
The 49ers went 48-16 from 1995 to 1998…. they were still fielding plenty of talent on those teams. Maybe they just let aging vets leave when their best days had passed them by…
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SF’rz transitions have been awesome…
QBs from
Montana to
Young to
Garcia
RBs from
Craig to
Waters to
Gore
WRs…same story
Organization has been so good over time.
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But through out that process they had to circumvent that salary cap….which is what caught up to them. That was my point. Yes I was wrong in thinking that they cut all those players to get under the cap. But I was right that they were in cap hell, which is why they had to circumvent. But it really not about a right or wrong here…it’s more of an understanding of what the 49ers went through to be in cap hell. The Lions had no such experience!
Every team had to do it. Every team makes business decisions on who to re-sign and who to let go.
Jump to current day, the Rams are doing it right now letting Robert Woods, OBJ, Von Miller, Darius Williams, Austin Corbett go to other teams. Bringing in new players Bobby Wagner, Allen Robinson, Troy Hill and keeping their own (Stafford/Donald/Kupp). The Rams aren’t in salary cap hell (not yet, but working on it), they are just making business decisions like what the 49ers were doing in the late 1990’s.
It was worse, their mismanagement of the cap cost them a tremendously talented player . . . in . . . his . . . prime. It was inexcusable.
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True….but the 49ers got heavily penalized for it. I don’t recall any other team being penalized like that for circumventing the salary cap
I don’t think what the 49ers went through were much different than the Lions. In the late 1990s, we let Lomas, Glover, Spielman all leave. I’m sure there were others, those were just off the top of my head. I’m not sure how you’re seeing the 49ers getting heavily penalized.
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Because then49ers were fined for what they did. DeBartolo & Policy were fined nearly 500,000 for circumvention …Eddies sister Denise reported him to the NFL and that is how she and her husband got control of the team.
Not sure what this has to do with salary cap hell.
They were fined for trying to circumvent the salary cap and rightfully so.
Wasn’t Eddie ousted for gambling? Might not be a problem now, but it was then.
But think about it…if you are not in cap hell why would you have to circumvent the salary cap??
I’ll use a better example…recently the Saints were more than 96 million dollars over the cap…they had to obviously make moves to fix that…that is cap hell!
You sir are an absolute “value add” as poster. Thanks for the time and thought that goes into your posts!!!
- as for the Quinn to Holmes transition…. Holmes and DC made it pretty clear they were eliminating TURDS from day one…
Stafford asking to be traded accelerated the program big time…. The 2019-2021 rosters were 5 win teams WITH Stafford, and likely 2-3 win teams at most with a backup.
Trufant, James, Daniel, Shelton, Jones and Coleman didn’t save us a TON of money as 19M divided amongst 6 roster spots
Consider trading Stafford instantly triggered a 19M cap hit…
So trading Stafford created a 19M problem at a time we were only projecting to have about 12M in space…. We also had the rookie pool to account for (DeadStroke- 7M?)
I believe we were likely to be about 12M over the cap after trading Stafford and accounting for the draft class….
Trufant - became Jacobs
Coleman- became AJ Parker
James- became Wright
Shelton- became Brockers
Daniels- became Boyle
Jones- became Anzalone
The group on the right cost under 9M total… so those guys and the draft class was paid for by the cut players on the left. The above list covered nearly 20M, plus some slick accounting with Nick Williams…
From a talent, effort, fit etc there is as no reason to manipulate the 21’ cap to save a few bucks and kick the cab…
2021 was an audition to being here.
Now we have guys like J Reynolds, Raymond, Cephus, Jacobs, Parker, Price, Nelson, Kraemer, E Brown, etc all back as depth pieces with great proven starting experience.
So much better than guys like K Wiggins, J James, or Daniels making a combined 15M a year to hopefully not play.
Trufant and Coleman not only created 10M… but from 2023 and beyond- they may have lesser remaining careers than Jacobs and Parker.
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Truly who cares what the definition of cap “hell” is?
There isn’t really a way to quantify value of NFL contracts…. Stafford, Donald, and Kupp seem like logical moves “right now,” but…
In 2022 those 3 monsters only count for 55M… but carry “185MM” in collective dead cap money, which is irrelevant given they don’t want to move on from any of them obviously….
In 2023 those 3 will cost 85MM in cap hit, but still carry a 125MM in combined dead cap hits…. We are now talking 33 year old Donald, 31 year old Kupp, and 36 year old Stafford… and clearly they are more than half the cap and NOT CUT IR TRADEABLE!
In 2024- they cost 106M to keep and 76M to cut!
FWIW- Ramsey will be counting for 25M a year with major dead cap numbers into his 30s
The Rams know the moves they made this off-season were AWFUL if they don’t win the SB again in 2023…. They also know those moves give them a solid chance at another ring, and choosing not to make those moves would have closed the window and triggered a rebuild.
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The NFL salary cap started in 1994. Carmen Policy was trying to save on the cap in 1993, by issuing signing bonuses in 1993, that wouldn’t count against the cap. Carmen Policy was an innovator, he did things just to do them.
Absolutely, you can add the Packers, Atlanta, Philly in there as well.
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