Even after letting enough players walk in free agency to see the largest salary exodus in the NFL, the San Francisco 49ers will need the cap to increase for their future plans to work.

The 49ers have backloaded contracts for everyone from Deebo Samuel and Fred Warner to Javon Hargrave and Arik Armstead. Some day these backend-heavy contracts will catch up to San Francisco—but the team is counting on the salary cap rising before they do.

"The 49ers are confident the salary cap will continue its significant rise in the coming years," The Athletic's David Lombardi wrote. "It's tied to NFL revenues, which are climbing in this era of new media deals. So the 49ers are surfing a wave by pushing cap costs into future years that should be able to better accommodate them."

As Lombardi noted, the upcoming draft presents an affordable way for the 49ers to fill out the roster.

San Francisco has a bevy of draft choices to make thanks to an NFL-high seven compensatory picks, but the first selection comes at No. 99, so the picks will likely be affordable. Only the top 51 salaries on the 90-man roster count against the cap.

The bigger question, however, is how the 49ers will orchestrate replacing the free-agency losses of right tackle Mike McGlinchey, safety Jimmie Ward, cornerback Emmanuel Moseley and quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo.

The 49ers have already backloaded a significant amount of salaries (they have $237M pledged for 2024 and another $188M tied to 2025, according to Over the Cap.)

By the time these payments come due, San Francisco is hoping the salary cap will have climbed.

There's a cost to this strategy, however, and Lombardi notes that the Los Angeles Rams are currently paying the price. They're working with limited cap space this offseason after years of backloaded contracts. What's more, the COVID-19 season showed that annual salary-cap increases are not guaranteed.

"The 49ers have to exercise some restraint with how many cap bills they push into the future," Lombardi wrote.