Nick Wagoner
Multiple Authors
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — For the second time in per week the San Francisco 49ers added a veteran to their large receiver room, agreeing to phrases on a one-year deal with Christian Kirk, a supply advised ESPN.
Kirk spent 2025 with the Houston Texans after a three-year stint with the Jacksonville Jaguars and his first 4 seasons with the Arizona Cardinals. The deal is for as much as $6 million, sources advised NFL reporter Jordan Schultz, who first reported the settlement.
For the Niners, Kirk’s addition is the most recent to a receiver room that’s present process vital renovation. The 49ers signed Mike Evans to a three-year, $42.5 million deal within the opening hours of free company final week.
The additions of Evans and Kirk provide the Niners confirmed manufacturing on the place with Jauan Jennings, Brandon Aiyuk, Kendrick Bourne and Skyy Moore both already touchdown elsewhere or anticipated to within the coming weeks or months.
Jennings is an unrestricted free agent after he and the Niners couldn’t come to an settlement on an extension final offseason. He has but to signal with one other staff after the primary week of free company.
Aiyuk is all however sure to be gone with normal supervisor John Lynch saying in January that the receiver has performed his last snap as a Niner. Lynch indicated {that a} transaction would come after the brand new league 12 months begins, which occurred final Wednesday.
Because the brand new league 12 months is underway, the 49ers can launch Aiyuk at any level and designate him a post-June 1 lower. That would enable them to unfold his lifeless cash cap hit over two seasons.
So far, the 49ers have held on to Aiyuk as Lynch has mentioned the staff would proceed hoping for a commerce to materialize. Because trades cannot be given the post-June 1 designation, the 49ers should be prepared to tackle your complete lifeless cash hit of $29.585 million in 2026 in the event that they discover a commerce associate for Aiyuk earlier than June 1.
Still, Aiyuk’s departure stays a when, not an if. Meanwhile, Bourne (Arizona) and Moore (Green Bay Packers) have already discovered their subsequent NFL houses in free company. As it stands, the Niners have Evans, Kirk, Ricky Pearsall, Demarcus Robinson, Jacob Cowing and Jordan Watkins as their major choices at receiver.
San Francisco has six picks within the first 4 rounds in April’s NFL draft at its disposal if it desires to proceed including on the place.
Kirk is coming off a 28-catch, 239-yard, one-touchdown season in Houston wherein he missed 4 video games and battled hamstring accidents for a lot of the 12 months. He additionally had an eight-catch, 144-yard efficiency in an AFC wild-card win towards the Pittsburgh Steelers, which set a Texans postseason franchise file.
In San Francisco, Kirk figures to work into the combo as a slot receiver possibility with Evans on the “X” place and Pearsall because the “Z.” Kirk, 29, may be an possibility within the return sport following Moore’s departure, although he hasn’t returned any kicks or punts since 2023.
A second-round choose by the Cardinals in 2018, Kirk has 432 receptions for five,415 yards and 30 touchdowns in eight seasons.
ESPN’s DJ Bien-Aime contributed to this report.
