49ers penalized draft center, will lose 2025 fifth-round pick after NFL finds accounting error

The San Francisco 49ers will be penalized in the fourth round of the 2024 NFL Draft and lose a fifth-round pick in 2025 after the league discovered administrative errors in salary accounting that led to misreporting of cumulative player compensation, the league announced. Monday.

The accounting errors in question were from the end of the 2022 league year.

“We accept responsibility and accept the discipline imposed by the NFL for a payroll clerical error,” the 49ers said in a statement. “At no time did we mislead or deceive the league or gain a competitive advantage with respect to the salary error.”

The 49ers finished the 2022 season 13-4 and reached the NFC Championship Game, where they lost to the Philadelphia Eagles, 31-7, after quarterback Brock Purdy suffered an elbow injury.

San Francisco had three picks at the end of the fourth round (No. 124, 131 and 133) and dropping one of them (No. 131) four spots is no big deal. But given the 49ers' recent history with fifth-round draft picks, losing a fifth-round pick next year would be tough to swallow. This is the round in which San Francisco has found starters George Kittle, Dre Greenlaw, Talanoa Hufanga and Demodore Lenoir among others in recent seasons.

In fact, “the fifth round is the money round” has become a slogan in 49ers circles and fans often joke — or maybe be serious — that San Francisco should give up their first- and second-day picks and load up only on the fifth-day round. The team has one fifth-round pick, No. 176, in next month's draft.

Fifth-round picks have been the lifeblood of the 49ers system, so the impact of one loss should not be mocked. Consider the first draft of Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch in 2017. They certainly didn't have much success in the first round, selecting defensive lineman Solomon Thomas and linebacker Reuben Foster.

But they scored the fifth goal with Kittel, who remains the team's starter.

An added benefit to success in the later rounds is cost: fifth-round picks are much cheaper than first-round picks. San Francisco, pressed against the salary cap with a potentially huge contract extension looming for Purdy in 2025, could use as many cost-controlled picks as possible.

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