The 49ers and Jauan Jennings agreed to a re-worked contract on Wednesday, with $3 million in play-time incentives added to the receiver’s deal.
But with Jennings’ contract still set to expire after the 2025 season, San Francisco and the wideout are not necessarily done negotiating.
Jennings has also been dealing with a calf injury, but he was on the field on Wednesday as a limited participant in practice.
“[T]he great news is Jauan has looked great out there, and he’s ready to go, and he kept himself in really good shape,” Lynch said in a Thursday interview with KNBR, via David Bonilla of 49erswebzone.com. “Is there going to be a little rust? Hopefully not. He’s played a lot of football for us, and his energy out there is palpable. We feel it. We’re going to continue to try to work on a long-term deal, but right now we’ve got something, a solution, that works for everybody for the short term, and that’s a good thing for the Niners.”
Lynch noted that while the club couldn’t come to an agreement with Jennings now, the door isn’t closed.
“Some teams do have the policy, once you hit the season, they put all contracts away. That’s not something we’ve done,” Lynch said. “We are going to kind of focus on going and beating Seattle right now, but we’ll continue to try to work towards that. We’ve said it many times, we love J.J., we love his presence on this team, and we want to keep him around here for a while.”
Jennings, 28, caught 77 passes for 975 yards with six touchdowns in 2024 — all career highs.
“I want to commend Jauan,” Lynch said. “I think the way he took care of his business, both getting healthy and his want for a new contract, he handled it in a good way. One thing I do pride myself — we talked about strategic transparency — we’re pretty transparent people. When I say stuff, I usually mean it. And when I was saying that those things don’t have to be mutually exclusive — Jauan did battle a calf injury, and he did want a new contract, and both things seemed to get right, right at the right time. So, that’s a good thing for us.”
