49ers lost a draft pick; overpaid a player $75k and he didn’t give it back

Apparently, the reason the NFL penalized the San Francisco 49ers for what the team called a “clerical payroll error” was because the 49ers gave one of their players too much money.

The NFL announced last week that the 49ers would have to drop their 2024 fourth-round pick four spots, to the back of the round at No. 135, and forfeit a 2025 fifth-round pick after a league review found errors at the end of the 2022 season.

General manager John Lynch was asked about the situation Monday during a press availability at the NFL’S meetings in Florida.

“We overpaid a player ... by $75,000,” Lynch said, adding that he wouldn’t say which player it was. “... This was back in the COVID era, and there was a new system in place. And so, it happened. We own our part. We’ve gone through a whole mitigation deal to remedy some of the issues that happened. But the league decided to impose that, so you take your medicine and you move on.”

Lynch said he has “tremendous respect” for the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell but said he has a “difference of opinion on the severity” of the transgression. In a statement, the NFL said the Niners would have remained under the salary cap regardless of the error and that they were not attempting to circumvent the cap. The team sent a statement after the penalty was announced.

“We take responsibility and accept the imposed discipline from the NFL due to a clerical payroll error,” the 49ers’ statement read. “At no time did we mislead or otherwise deceive the league or gain a competitive advantage in connection with the payroll mistake.”

But accepting the penalty doesn’t mean the 49ers have

to like losing the fifth-round pick, with Lynch quipping the fifth round “has been pretty good to us.” The Niners drafted George Kittle in the fifth round in 2017, among other notable fifthrounders on the roster.

Asked if the player who was overpaid kept the money, Lynch chuckled before turning the question back on the reporter: “Would you?”

As Lynch further explained, the main issue for the 49ers came from trying to recoup the money from the player rather than immediately reporting the overpayment to the NFL. It seems the team was unsuccessful, though, as Lynch said, “The player did what you’d think he’d do.”

So congratulations to whichever Niner got an unexpected bonus. Cue the Steve Miller Band.