When news broke that the San Francisco 49ers were trading away Jordan Mason for a future sixth and a late-round pick swap in 2025, it turned heads within the fanbase.
Why did the 49ers want to give away a player who had multiple 100-yard performances in 2024 for such a low price when it’s hard to confidently say Christian McCaffrey will play all 17 regular season games next fall? Are the 49ers that confident in Isaac Guerendo, their fourth-round pick out of Louisville in 2024? Or do they have something else up their sleeve?
Well, as The San Francisco Standard’s 49ers reporter, David Lombardi, pointed out on social media, this move shouldn’t come as much of a surprise at all, as the 49ers planned to move on from Mason in order to load up on future draft assets.
“Jordan Mason trade reminder: Dre Greenlaw, George Kittle, Talanoa Hufanga, Deommdore Lenoir were all 5th-round draft picks,” Lombardi wrote. “Elijah Mitchell, who racked up nearly 1,000 rushing yards as a rookie, was a 6th-round draft pick. 49ers added a new 5th-round pick this year and a 6th in 2026. This was sound, expected business.”
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In a way, the 49ers trading Mason for a draft pick is rather ironic, because it didn’t cost them a draft pick to bring him to town, with the former Yellow Jacket coming to the Bay Area as an undrafted free agent out of Georgia Tech. Mason worked his way up the depth chart over the years as other players suffered injuries or left in free agency, and in 2024, he blew up in a major way due to that hard work.
Now up one new pick in 2026, plus a swap of another to move up the board in 2025, the 49ers have a chance to add the next Greenlaw, Kittle, Hufanga, Lenoir, or even Mason while retaining extra years of control on rookie-scale contracts.
Will the 49ers miss Mason this fall? Yes, especially if CMC suffers another injury, but between Guerendo and their draft class this year, the 49ers should still be a good running team in 2025 if they can successfully replace their free agents on the offensive line.
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