The San Francisco 49ers missed out on Jalen Ramsey. So the heat is on them to add another cornerback before the 2025 season starts.
Among those that could be available is Jamel Dean of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who could end up being a nice fallback option after Ramsey was dealt to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Monday.
Dean is about to enter his seventh NFL season and has 313 tackles, 52 passes defended, seven interceptions and two fumbles recovered with the Buccaneers.
Still, with a salary cap charge of $15-plus million that can almost entirely be wiped out if he is cut or traded, and zero picks over the past two seasons, Dean’s time in Tampa could be running out.
Why Is Jamel Dean A Fit With the 49ers?
The Niners’ defensive secondary was a weak point in 2024, and things have only gotten worse since.
The Niners lost Pro Bowl cornerback Charvarious Ward in free agency to the Indianapolis Colts and are poised to start Deommodore Lenoir and Renardo Green at their cornerback spots. Yet, even that got more complicated when Lenoir was arrested in Los Angeles for resisting a peace officer — despite the low-level nature of the offense.
San Francisco was tied to Ramsey, but the Miami Dolphins went against his wishes of a west-coast trade but also got veteran safety Minkah Fitzpatrick and a 2027 fifth-round pick for the disgruntled All-Pro corner.
So the Niners clearly need help in their secondary. That’s why Grant Cohn of Sports Illustrated floated the idea of them acquiring Dean.
Dean is 28, so he’s still in his prime, and he has been a consistently good cornerback for the past few years — he simply hasn’t played behind a good front-seven recently,” Cohn wrote. “That would change on the 49ers.
“His base salary for 2025 is a reasonable $12.5 million, he has no guaranteed money left on his contract, and it expires after 2026.”
The Niners have ample cap space to afford the veteran, even though his relatively high cap hit in 2026 would eat into their $40-ish million in space for next off-season. But if the 49ers acquire Dean, and he again fails to intercept a pass, they could cut him and lose only $2-$4 million in cap space for 2026.
Is Jamel Dean Available in a Trade?
A Dean trade was named one of the five deals to watch by Cody Benjamin of CBS Sports, though it was Dean to the Las Vegas Raiders.
“Dean’s six-year run with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers includes a Super Bowl title and big-money extension,” Benjamin wrote, “but the veteran has been frequently mentioned as a potential cut or trade candidate due to a $15 million 2025 cap hit, almost all of which the Bucs could clear from their books by dealing Dean elsewhere.”
So the math makes sense for the Bucs to part with their veteran DB. But Benjamin also laid out why the Bucs, who have been to the playoffs five years in a row and are in win-now mode, may balk at actually dealing the vet.
“Even if Dean is more serviceable than special at a lofty price, the Bucs are trying to defend their NFC South crown,” Benjamin wrote. “Jettisoning such an experienced corner would put immediate pressure on rookie corners like Benjamin Morrison and Jacob Parrish to have a playoff-caliber impact.”
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