49ers lose 2025 5th round pick after accounting error

The 49ers' draft order has changed, and the team will lose a pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, and face another consequence in the fourth round of the 2024 Draft, the league announced Monday.

Due to an error by the team in accounting for compensation in 2022, they will be dinged draft capital. San Francisco has to forfeit its original fifth-round pick in the 2025 Draft and will have its 2024 fourth-round pick at 131 move to the end of the fourth round, behind the compensatory selections, at 135.

The following comes from the NFL:

"This action resulted from a league review that found administrative payroll accounting errors at the close of the 2022 league year that resulted in a misreporting of the club’s cumulative player compensation. The NFL determined that the club would have remained under the salary cap at all times regardless of the error and there was no intent to circumvent the cap."

In other words, the 49ers are being punished for an accounting error that the league deemed had no ill intent, and did not affect cap compliance. It seems a fairly substantial punishment given that context.

This was the assessment from OverTheCap's Jason Fitzgerald: