[Senator Clay Davis]

For the 49ers, franchising him just doesn't make sense given their cap situation. If they were tight against it franchising makes sense, but they aren't. Once you franchise him, unless he's one of the absolute worst starters in the league the following year, you're going to have to sign him long term, or franchise him again and end up with a Cousins situation which is untenable. And if they franchise him and he is amazing, you're looking at another $5-10 million a season added to the average, especially since Cousins will get huge money this year, setting the market going forward. So you roll the dice, and if he's above average it's a market value deal, and if he hits his ceiling it becomes, relatively speaking, a bargain.

Above average but not great is worth $25 or so million a year now. That's just reality. Average is now $20-25 million a year (see Flacco, Tannehill, Dalton etc...). Market is obviously broken, but at the same time desperation is also everywhere. Had Garoppolo gotten to market, he probably gets a similar deal to what the 49ers gave him from a desperate team like the Bills, Browns or Jets. At some point maybe we'll start to see corrections and the price of guys starts to come down, but we're several years away from that at a minimum.

You look at guys who've played more than Garoppolo like Winston and Mariota, or even a Dak or Goff, and would you really want to give any of them the contract Garoppolo just got? Not really, but you also don't really have a choice since getting another similar QB either costs $25-30 million a year (in the rare event one is even available), significant draft capital to move up in the draft to where one is available, getting robbed like the Redskins did for Alex Smith, getting lucky like the Seahawks with Wilson, or having to tank, and doing so in the right year. Just not many palatable options other than just paying the money.