The 49ers historically have been one of the more active teams leading up to the annual NFL trade deadline, and have made big moves to set themselves up for deep playoff runs year in and year out.
Now San Francisco joins a growing list of teams who would like more time to make those season-changing transactions.
The 49ers are one of six teams who plan to submit a proposal to the NFL that would push the trade deadline back from Week 8 to Week 10 each season, CBS Sports’ Jonathan Jones reported Wednesday.
San Francisco joins the Cleveland Browns, Washington Commanders, Philadelphia Eagles, New York Jets and Detroit Lions as the six teams pushing for a later deadline in hopes of generating more activity during the season.
Jones added that it’s unclear if the proposal will be approved by NFL owners at the annual league meetings from March 24-27 in Orlando, FL, and reported, citing a league source, that there’s disagreement among owners and general managers about whether the deadline should be moved at all.
“Our professional sports league has the earliest trade deadline by far,” Browns GM Andrew Berry told CBS Sports. “When you look at the other major four sports leagues … I think baseball and basketball, their trade deadline is after about 65 percent of their games have been played. Hockey’s after 78 percent. We’re currently at 45 percent. Our proposal would move it to about 55 percent of games played, while also maintaining the integrity of the season.
“If you look at it, on average, over 27 teams have been within two games of a wild-card spot exiting Week 10 games, and the earliest that a team has been eliminated from postseason contention over the last decade has been after Week 11, and that’s only happened twice.”
