Nick Bosa Deal ‘Not a Slam Dunk’ Before 49ers Play Steelers

The 49ers and Nick Bosa are now talking, but the deal getting done before the team’s Week 1 matchup against the Pittsburgh Steelers still may not get done. According to Jeremy Fowler of ESPN, while the two sides are working together, it seems a deal is starting to take shape; there is no guarantee that Bosa will play Week 1 as the deal has plenty of nuances to work out.

“People I’ve talked to believe he will be the highest-paid defensive player in the league above Donald; the 49ers would like to push this through before Week 1, but not a slam dunk. A deal of this magnitude has a lot of nuance to it,” Fowler said. 

A week ago, Ian Rapoport suggested that Bosa could legitimately miss the team’s first game against the Steelers while his contract situation plays out. Lynch noted there is now “open, healthy communication” between the 49ers and Bosa’s side.

“Will be miss a game? I don’t know,” Rapoport said on KNBR last week. “But I will say this. I would say, if it’s possible for anyone to miss a game, Nick Bosa would be in the conversation. That family, as principled as they are, I could see it.”

Bosa is under contract for the 2023 season and would begin to miss out on salary if he misses games. But Rapoport said there did not seem to be an urgency to the proceedings last week, just over two weeks from the opener. With nine days until they kick off at Acrisure Stadium, Bosa will play on limited practice time if he does play.

Albert Breer noted in his column in the MMQB on Friday that it appears to be “when not if” Bosa and the 49ers agree to something. The start of the season is their deadline given that Bosa is not around, and both sides are working hard to bridge the negotiation gap.

“The Niners and Bosa’s people have been trying to bridge that gap for a while now,” Breer wrote. “They have an artificial deadline coming (the start of the season), and at some point something almost has to get done. It’s when, not if.”

It seems with the direction the situation is taking, the timeline is anything but inevitable at this point, but Mike Tomlin and the Steelers will likely prepare as if he will play.