The 49ers won’t release receiver Marquise Goodwin, but they are open to trading him.
“We wouldn’t release Marquise. He’s too valuable,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said, via Matt Barrows of TheAthletic.com. “I know he fell out of the rotation last year, then he had an injury (and) wanted to go on IR, so he could get it cleaned up. I think it is right now. I haven’t seen him for a while. Marquise is a guy who can play in this league. If he’s on this team, he’s going to be competing with that group and, if not, I feel pretty confident another team would want him.”
Shanahan conceded the 49ers could trade Goodwin, who has two years left on his contract. Goodwin is scheduled to make $3.95 million in base salary and count $4.906 million against the cap.
The 49ers don’t have much room under the cap, with only about $13 million in space currently. They have extensions to work out with defensive tackle DeForest Buckner and tight end George Kittle and perhaps attempt to keep defensive end Arik Armstead.
“We could [trade Goodwin], yeah,” Shanahan said. “You also don’t get rid of valuable people just for nothing. So we’ll have him come back and compete and if that doesn’t work out we could always possibly trade him. There are lots of things that are open. But I don’t know that exact answer yet.”
Goodwin, 29, played in nine games last season and made 12 catches for 186 yards and a touchdown. It was his least number of catches, yards and touchdowns since 2015.
