Right tackle Anthony Davis will be a member of the 49ers for a long time.
Per a source with knowledge of the situation, the two sides have worked out a five-year extension. Coupled with his current deal, the contract will keep Davis in San Francisco through 2019.
Davis, who along with guard Mike Iupati were the last first-round picks of the pre-Harbaugh/Baalke regime, arrived via the 11th overall selection in the 2010 draft. Davis has started all 48 regular-season games of his career.
The Davis deal could be the first piece of a much larger contract puzzle for the 49ers, especially with Iupati, receiver Michael Crabtree, and quarterback Colin Kaepernick all due to become free agents in the same year Davis would have hit the market: 2015. Linebacker Aldon Smith will become a free agent in 2016.
As a practical matter, the 49ers need to be ready to sign their core players sooner rather than later. After 2013, both Kaepernick and Smith will be eligible for long-term deals -- and it’s safe to say both will want them. Especially since both players were drafted in the first year of the current rookie wage scale, which in Smith’s case resulted in a far lesser contract than he would have gotten if he’d been the seventh overall pick one year earlier.
As of Wednesday, the 49ers had $4.0 million in cap space. With the terms of the Davis deal not yet known, it’s unclear how the contract affected the team’s cap situation.
UPDATE 8:15 a.m. ET: The five-year extension is worth$37.295 million, with $17 million in guarantees.