Jauan Jennings challenged the 49ers offense after the Eagles rout
There have been a few teams around the NFL that haven’t paid players when they needed to. That includes the San Francisco 49ers, who now find themselves in another terrible position with one of the top players on their roster, Jauan Jennings.
During the 2024-25 season, Jennings was one of the top players in the NFL, proving at 28 years old to be a breakout candidate. He finished the year with 975 yards and six touchdowns, by far the best campaign of his career.
Jauan Jennings made the most of his 49ers opportunity
There are a few factors why Jennings played the type of football he did, but with all the injuries the San Francisco 49ers dealt with, he had an opportunity and ran with it. The 49ers must recognize that in the NFL, when such situations arise, players are often seeking to get paid after.
While it might not be the right decision to give Jennings what he’s looking for, it’s ultimately something that John Lynch and the rest of the front office and ownership have to figure out.
Jennings has yet to practice, with reports indicating that it’s due to his contract situation. Tim Kawakami of the San Francisco Standard reported that Jennings and the 49ers remain far from reaching a deal.
“I checked around, and my understanding is that the 49ers feel that the timing is all wrong,” Kawakami wrote. “They don’t want to give Jennings a big new deal so soon after he signed the last one, a year after giving Brandon Aiyuk a huge contract that the 49ers’ money people almost instantly regretted, and months after signing Brock Purdy to a $265 million deal.”
“I’ve heard that the two sides are not close on a new agreement, which shouldn’t be a surprise after the 49ers’ rounds of cost-cutting last spring set up their new deals with [Brock] Purdy, Fred Warner, and George Kittle. Beyond that, the 49ers have clearly indicated that there isn’t much more money to pay out, and certainly not at wide receiver, with Aiyuk’s $30 million a year deal already on the books.”
What will happen with Jauan Jennings?
With the regular season starting in a few weeks, this is the last thing that the 49ers want to hear or deal with, as they need him on the field after a few offseason decisions, and Brandon Aiyuk not expected to be back until Week 6.
While the contract situation with Jennings and the San Francisco 49ers is likely the reason for him not participating during practice, head coach Kyle Shanahan shut down those rumors.
According to Zach Ragan of A to Z Sports, Jennings is currently out of the 49ers’ practice due to his calf injury. Calf injuries are tricky, so there could be some truth behind it, but it seems like this has a lot to do with the contract.
“No, not at all,” said Shanahan when asked if Jennings’ absence is related to his contract situation. “And this is actually why Jauan missed OTAs is because of his calf. It’s the same injury he had last year during training camp, which made him miss a couple weeks during training camp last year.
“We didn’t get him until the end of training camp last year and it’s the same thing on the MRI and it’s the same thing he’s going through. But, hopefully we’ll get him back sooner than later,” added Shanahan.
