Free agent punter Corliss Waitman is signing with the 49ers, Tom Pelissero of NFL Media reports.
The 49ers previously re-signed long snapper Jon Weeks and kicker Eddy Pineiro.
Waitman, 30, will replace Thomas Morstead as the team’s punter.
He signed with the Steelers as an undrafted free agent in 2020 and has had three stints with Pittsburgh, including the past two seasons.
Waitman has also had stops with the Raiders, Patriots, Broncos and Bears.
In his career, Waitman has appeared in 52 games with 230 punts for a 46.4-yard average and a 41.7-yard net. He has landed 36.5 percent of his punts inside the 20-yard line.
The well-traveled Josh Johnson is traveling back to Cincinnati.
The Bengals announced on Saturday that Johnson has signed a one-year deal.
Johnson, who turns 40 in May, was a fifth-round pick of the Buccaneers in 2008. He has spent time with the Bucs, 49ers, Sacramento Mountain Lions of the original UFL, Browns, Bengals, 49ers (second stint), Bengals (second stint), Jets, Colts, Bills, Ravens, Giants, Texans, Raiders, San Diego Fleet of the AAF, Washington, Lions, L.A. Wildcats of the XFL, 49ers (third stint), Jets (second stint), Ravens (second stint), Broncos, 49ers (fourth stint), Ravens (third stint), Commanders (second stint), and now the Bengals for a third time.
He has appeared in 50 regular-season games with 11 starts. His starts have happened with only three teams: the Buccaneers, Commanders, and Ravens. His two most recent starts came in Weeks 17 and 18 of the 2025 season, for Washington.
Johnson also has appeared in one playoff game — the 2023 NFC Championship, after 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy made an early exit with an elbow injury. Johnson completed seven of 13 passes before suffering a concussion.
Johnson joins Joe Burrow and Sean Clifford on Cincinnati’s roster. Joe Flacco arrived via trade in 2025, appearing in nine games with six starts. He’s currently a free agent.
The Browns have agreed to terms with defensive tackle Kalia Davis on a one-year deal worth up to $3 million, Mike Garafolo of NFL Media reports.
Davis, 27, spent his first four seasons with the 49ers after they made him a sixth-round pick in 2022.
The 49ers did not tender him as a restricted free agent.
Davis tore an ACL in his final college season at UCF and missed his rookie season. He played only three games in 2023 before appearing in 13 in 2024 and all 17 last season.
He missed four games in 2024 with a knee injury.
In his career, Davis has totaled 41 tackles, 1.5 sacks, an interception and four passes defensed.
In the past, the NFL sold the Week 1 international game on a one-off basis. This year, that’s changing.
John Ourand of Puck reports in the latest edition of his Varsity newsletter that the 49ers-Rams game in Melbourne has been folded into a package of five or six total games.
Per Ourand, Fox and YouTube were interested in the Melbourne game. Now, whoever gets it will be buying other games, too.
As Ourand surmises, the four international games that flowed back to the NFL as part of the ESPN merger presumably will be included in the new package. The possible (which is more fairly termed “likely”) Thanksgiving Eve game could be part of it, too.
It could result in a payday landing somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion, over and above the billions the NFL will receive from its existing broadcast-rights packages.
The package is being sold at a time when the league is believed to be negotiating an extension of the broader deal with CBS, with the possible plan to move on to Fox and the other companies that currently hold the rights to the existing windows.
The NFL plans to play the Melbourne game on either Wednesday, September 9, or Thursday, September 10, with the Seahawks’ home opener landing on the other day.
Then there’s the question of whether the NFL will find another new standalone window or two. Christmas Eve is surely already in play this year, since it lands on a Thursday. How about Christmas Eve Eve? Or another stray Wednesday — like, say, Wednesday, November 11 (Veterans Day)?
The league is looking for more and more ways to stuff cheese into its 11-figure pizza. Mark Cuban once said of the NFL appetite for expanding into more nights of the week, “Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.”
The more accurate phrase seems to be this: Pigs get fat, hogs get fatter, whales get fattest.
San Francisco is bringing back one of its key special teams players.
Linebacker Luke Gifford has agreed to re-sign with the 49ers on a two-year deal, according to a report from NFL Media.
Gifford, 30, joined the 49ers last offseason and was selected to his first Pro Bowl as a special teams player. He played all 17 games in 2025, totaling 35 tackles.
Gifford was on the field for 81 percent of special teams snaps and 16 percent of defensive snaps for San Francisco last season.
Heading into his eighth pro season, Gifford has played 90 games with 14 starts for Dallas, Tennessee, and San Francisco.
