{"id":387175,"date":"2026-07-05T19:10:40","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T19:10:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/387175\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T19:10:40","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T19:10:40","slug":"ricky-pearsall-is-running-out-of-time-with-the-san-francisco-49ers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/387175\/","title":{"rendered":"Ricky Pearsall Is Running Out of Time With the San Francisco 49ers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6z\">Many joke that the NFL stands for Not For Long. That is because players, coaches, and teams can look great one minute and be irrelevant the next. The term Not For Long could be applied to Ricky Pearsall despite only entering his third season. However, the San Francisco 49ers are about to be staring down a tough decision with Pearsall after this season, and if he does not have a massive year, his days with the team are likely <a href=\"https:\/\/www.profootballnetwork.com\/nfl-players-most-pressure-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">numbered, per Jacob Infante of Pro Football Network<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>San Francisco 49ers have a major decision to make with Ricky Pearsall in 2026<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"75\">Pearall is a tough debate because when he is healthy, he has proven to be productive. However, the games in which he is active are limited, and the games in which he is fully healthy when active are even smaller.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"78\">So far, he has played 20 games and 13 starts over the past two seasons. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nfl\/49ers\/onsi\/what-history-says-about-ricky-pearsalls-future-49ers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pearsall only has 928 yards over that time<\/a>. He averaged a below-average 1.31 yards per route run during his rookie year. However, that jumped to 1.68 in his second NFL season. He has produced, but not enough.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7b\">\u00a0The 49ers will have to decide on a fifth-year option for Pearsall. At this moment, that projection is expected to <a href=\"https:\/\/overthecap.com\/fifth-year-option-projections\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">be over $15M<\/a>. If they do not pick up his fifth-year option, Pearsall would enter the last year of his rookie deal and would be staring down free agency.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/01kwsg4t52p062yd6ney.jpg\" alt=\"San Francisco 49er\" title=\"San Francisco 49er\" width=\"360\" height=\"203\" class=\"undefined w-full w-full blur-[5px]\" q:id=\"7l\"\/><\/p>\n<p>IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7p\">This puts the 49ers in a tough spot.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7s\">First, if Pearsall plays well and they pick up the option, that is still just one year out of three when he was healthy. That is a lot to project for guaranteeing his next two years&#8217; salary. Of course, if Pearsall plays over the next two years, and the team does not have the option placed on him, his fifth-year salary will either be more than the team wanted to pay, or he will not even be on the team.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7v\">So, even if the 49ers do not place the fifth-year option on him, it puts them in a spot where they have to debate extending him after his third year, or being comfortable with the idea that his fourth NFL season will be his last with the 49ers. If he plays well, he will price himself off the team. If he struggles, they will not want him back.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-10\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7y\">It makes for a do-or-die season for Pearsall and the 49ers.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.minutemediacdn.com\/platform\/google_discover_icon.svg\" class=\"shrink-0\"\/>Add us as a preferred source on Google<a aria-label=\"Follow si.com on Google News\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=si.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"flex h-[30px] w-[30px] shrink-0 items-center justify-center rounded-full bg-primary font-group-large text-sm font-medium text-white transition-colors hover:bg-secondary focus:bg-secondary md:w-auto md:gap-2.5 md:px-4 md:py-[5px]\">Follow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many joke that the NFL stands for Not For Long. That is because players, coaches, and teams can&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-387175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}