We hereby renew our vows about NFL free agency, namely that it's not normally that compelling a tale. Certainly not after 30 or so hours of wondering how the San Francisco 49ers would deal with its Old West-quality tavern door offensive line.
Overnight, the team re-signed Job One, left tackle Trent Williams, to a new deal of up to six years in length and a salary that could reach $138 million and includes $55 million in existence bonuses and other guarantees, and then they doubled down on saving Jimmy Garoppolo by signing veteran center Alex Mack, terms not yet inflated for public consumption by deceptive press release. The two deals doubtless consume the considerable majority of their remaining cap space, at least for the moment, but they do give Garoppolo his best chance yet of surviving the season.
It also wipes out most of the 49er fan base's reasons for angsting about Stupid Season, which is what the free agency period actually is. In a year with a strangulated salary cap that made it seem like everyone had cap problems, it turns out as it always does that the cap always gets figured out. I mean, it isn't a difficult task for rich folks to fire people to get under budget, and no team has ever started the season while over the cap. No Warrior-level $500 million payrolls here.
We do it every year, though, an artificial deadline that has never not been met causing unnecessary agita causing us to pretend we are all accountants and general managers because it is no longer feasible to imagine ourselves as actual athletes. The 49ers met their free agency burdens in one night, while most of us were asleep, instigating the question "Who do we bother worrying at all?"
That is, of course, a more existential question, since we should not be concerning our brains with how the 49ers meet their roster obligations under any circumstances. It's just one more thing that gets fixed, and even if free agency turns out badly for your favorite team, another one comes along like clockwork.
I suppose this mean the 49ers have sent a signal that they recognized the obvious, that whatever quarterbacking issues you think they have are now addressed as well as can be done just by keeping Garoppolo upright. True, that ruins your fantasies of your team getting to play the reindeer games at the position that other teams have been and continue to play, caused largely by Kyle Shanahan's pathological need to kick every tire and due every diligence. But at least you can move off the offensive line now, or so you think. Williams is 32; Mack is 35. That means most of the line will be a salary cap concern next year, and the year after, and forever and ever — that is, if you want it to be.
All you are really promised, after all, is today, and today the 49ers did what needed to be done, namely, shutting us up about two positions of need and moving roster freaks onto what they plan to do in the draft. But that's the thing about worrying about rosters you don't control. Someone else figures it out for you, so you can go back to bed.