Why hasn't first-round pick Ricky Pearsall signed his rookie contract with the San Francisco 49ers yet?
The days of NFL draft picks holding out while their first contracts are negotiated are largely a thing of the past. Indeed, rookie contracts became much simpler to finalize since 2011, when the collective bargaining agreement established a rookie wage scale based on a player's draft position. Players seldom miss training camp time without a deal […]
The days of NFL draft picks holding out while their first contracts are negotiated are largely a thing of the past.
Indeed, rookie contracts became much simpler to finalize since 2011, when the collective bargaining agreement established a rookie wage scale based on a player's draft position. Players seldom miss training camp time without a deal in place — Joey Bosa with the San Diego Chargers in 2016 being an exception.
So why have the 49ers still not come to terms with first-round pick Ricky Pearsall?
Pearsall is one of just seven first-round picks from the 2024 draft who remain unsigned, so his situation is far from unique. While the contract terms are largely predetermined since the implementation of the wage scale, minor details can occasionally hold things up and could be contributing to the delay with Pearsall.
How it works
The established contract structure based on draft position goes up every year, following the salary cap increase in the league. Every first-round pick contract is a four-year deal, which includes a fifth-year option teams can exercise.
The contracts have a floor and a ceiling for salary and signing bonus (and those numbers are fairly close), so negotiations in this regard are straightforward.
The fifth-year option is non-negotiable, and teams have the opportunity to decide whether to exercise it at the end of the player's third season. As of the 2020 CBA, it is fully guaranteed once exercised. Previously, it was only guaranteed for injury.
Players taken from the second through the seventh rounds are eligible to get a raise in the fourth year based on playing time and Pro Bowl selections. However, for the most part, deals are fairly standardized.
What's up?
So why has Pearsall yet to sign his deal?
These days, delays are usually down to one of two reasons. The first relates to the signing bonus.
Players receive a certain amount for signing the contract, but that money is not necessarily paid upon doing so.
As a result, the payment schedule of the bonus can be a sticking point, one that is magnified by the importance of the signing bonus for teams as a mechanism to spread a significant amount of the salary cap hit across the life of a player's contract. Signing bonuses make up a huge part of the deal, understandably making the payment schedule extremely important for players.
A dispute over that cash flow led Seattle Seahawks cornerback Devon Witherspoon to hold out until the third day of last year's training camp, though that did not prevent him from making the Pro Bowl as a rookie.
The second possible stumbling block is offset language pertaining to guaranteed salary. Contracts with no offset language give players the opportunity to double dip and collect two salaries in the event that deal is terminated. As such, teams look to include offsets and voids to protect themselves. These can be related to injury, suspension and conduct detrimental to the team.
Negotiations over these offsets and voids can lead to delays. That was the case in 2016 with Joey Bosa and the Chargers, and three years later negotiations over younger brother Nick's rookie deal with the Niners dragged on until late July for the same reason.
Contract projection
Pearsall's contract projection from Spotrac has him slated to receive a deal worth $12.538 million with an average annual value of $3.134 million and a signing bonus of $5.938 million.
As it stands, the 49ers have over $30 million in salary cap space, so fitting that contract on the books will not be an issue as they look to finish the task of signing their eight-man draft class.
There's no reason to believe a deal won't get done and, with Pearsall having significantly impressed during OTAs and mandatory minicamp, the 49ers will be keen for this matter to conclude as soon as possible to allow the 31st overall pick to carry his momentum into his first training camp.
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