49ers, receiver Jauan Jennings agree to 2-year, $15.4 million extension: Source
The San Francisco 49ers and receiver Jauan Jennings agreed to a two-year, $15.4 million deal, including $10.5 million guaranteed, league sources confirmed Wednesday.
Jennings has spent the last three seasons with the 49ers after San Francisco selected him in the seventh round of the 2020 NFL Draft. He’s played in 45 regular-season games and caught 78 passes for 963 yards and seven touchdowns.
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He was a standout player in the 49ers’ Super Bowl loss to the Kansas City Chiefs earlier this year. Jennings caught four passes for 42 yards and a touchdown and also threw a 21-yard touchdown pass to running back Christian McCaffrey in the 25-22 loss.
Jennings is the type of player you love to have on your team and hate to play against.
That’s the simple impetus behind San Francisco’s decision to pour even more resources into the receiver room to finish this extension. The 49ers had offered Jennings, a restricted free agent, the second-round tender worth $4.9 million.
But as the team’s best blocking wide receiver, one of its best separators and a gamer who might’ve been close to winning Super Bowl MVP honors, Jennings had made a strong case that he was worth more — and San Francisco agreed, adding an extra year of team control in the process of rewarding him.
He entered college at Tennessee as a quarterback before transitioning to receiver. Jennings may not be as heavily used in the pass game as Brandon Aiyuk and Deebo Samuel, but last season’s playoffs highlighted his importance to the 49ers.
Jennings’ run-blocking attitude here is a huge deal that rubs off on the rest of the team, and he’s consistently made huge catches. This is a veteran San Francisco wants in the room with rookie wideout Ricky Pearsall.
The 49ers’ next order of business: Sign Aiyuk to a long-term extension. This deal with Jennings may actually make that easier, since the team has bought more flexibility to move salary-cap hits around by bypassing the rigid one-year tender process.
