Tackle Staley gets contract reworked
After head coach Kyle Shanahan publicly mentioned that the 49ers wanted to give Pro Bowl left tackle Joe Staley a raise, it would have been odd if the Niners didn’t follow through on their stated desire. And now they have. The 49ers have reworked the final two years on Staley’s contract, which could provide him with an additional $6.4 million in salary, NFL Network reported Tuesday. Staley, who was scheduled to earn $11 million over the next two season, now could earn $17.4 million.
The news comes after Shanahan told reporters at the NFL combine in March that Staley, the team’s longest-tenured player, merited a bump in pay.
“I wish we could overpay everybody,” Shanahan said. “These guys deserve it in my opinion — what they go through, what they put their bodies through, the pressure they’re under. But you’ve also got to do what’s right for the organization.”
Staley, who was voted into the Pro Bowl in 2011 through ’15 and was an alternate last season, remains relatively underpaid with an average annual salary of $8.72 million over the next two seasons: Sixteen left tackles have an average annual salary of at least $8.9 million, according to OverTheCap.com.
Staley’s salary is now more in line with that of center Weston Richburg, 26, who signed a five-year, $47.5 million contract in March after spending his four seasons with the Giants. In addition, right tackle Trent Brown, who is entering the final year of his contract, could land a lucrative second contract.
The 49ers could afford to reward Staley. Before restructuring his deal, they had $46.59 million in salary-cap space, third most in the NFL.
Staley, who will turn 34 on Aug. 30, has remained a model of consistency and durability. Last year, he went to the Pro Bowl as an alternate and was ranked second among tackles by Pro Football Focus. He has missed just four games since 2010, including one start last year after he sustained an orbital fracture that was expected to sideline him for multiple games.
“When it comes to a broken bone in your eye (socket), only he knows if he can play or not,” Shanahan said in November. “That’s not something that you can tell, and I don’t think anyone would have questioned him at all if he didn’t play in that game, at all. … When you’ve got a veteran who doesn’t have to do something and you see how important it is to him, I think that rookies say, ‘Hey, that’s how you make it in this league. That’s how important it has to be to me, too.’ ”