SANTA CLARA – Fred Warner is seven seasons into one of the best careers ever by a 49ers linebacker. By virtue of a reported three-year, $63 million contract extension, he has more time ahead to prove worthy of joining Patrick Willis and Dave Wilcox in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
The extension includes over $56 million in guarantees, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, who first reported the news Monday.
The team has yet to announce the deal, which surpasses that of Baltimore’s Roquan Smith among top-paid linebackers.
Warner, 28, was entering the final two years of an extension (five years, $95 million) he signed in 2021, at $17.65 million base salaries in 2025 and ’26.
Warner’s extension comes in the wake of this offseason’s other priority signings, for quarterback Brock Purdy (five years, $265 million) and tight end George Kittle (four years, $76.4 million).
His primary goal is to accomplish something that eluded both Willis and Wilcox: win a Super Bowl, which linebacker Keena Turner did four times from 1980-90.
“Listen, I never need more motivation to get up and be the best version of myself or for our team,” Warner said in April. “Even though we’ve been close to hitting the top of the mountain top, we’ve never actually surpassed it, right? So teams have never looked at us as Super Bowl champs because we haven’t attained that yet. That carries heavily on myself as it does other guys who’ve been here.”
With 896 tackles, Warner is 55 shy of surpassing Willis for the most in 49ers history. Willis played only six games in what proved his eighth and final season, with foot issues prompting his retirement. Wilcox’s official tackle total is unknown from his 1964-74 tenure as a seven-time Pro Bowler.
Warner earned his fourth All-Pro and Pro Bowl honors last season. Coaches selected him for the Bill Walsh Award a third time in five years, and teammates picked him as their Hazeltine Iron Man a second straight season. He played in all 17 games despite a Week 4 ankle injury that involved a fracture, as he revealed late in the season.
“I feel great. The ankle is a thing of the past, thank God,” Warner said as the offseason program began in mid-April. “That was tough trying to deal with that all season. There are positives to take from it. I know how I want my offseason to be: having a ring on my finger at the end of it.”
Warner has been the 49ers’ perennial leader in tackles, and he and Washington’s Bobby Wagner are the only NFL players with at least 115 tackles annually since 2018.
Warner’s 115 games are the 10th most by a 49ers linebacker, three ahead of both Willis and Ken Norton Jr. The most are Hazeltine’s 176 from 1955-68, followed by Wilcox and Turner at 153 apiece.
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Warner has forced 15 fumbles (plus one in the 2021 team’s playoff win at Green Bay) and he has recovered six in his career. He has 12 career interceptions, including two in the playoffs and two returned for touchdowns, his most recent score coming in last season’s Week 4 win over New England. He also has 10 sacks.
Dre Greenlaw and Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles, Warner’s wingmen in recent years, left in free agency as part of the 49ers’ youth movement on defense.
“Playing alongside younger guys, it keeps me young. I feel like I’m still young, but of course you get to eight-plus (seasons) and they start calling you ‘old head,’ ‘Unc,’ and other crazy things,” Warner said. “We talk about how much we lost this offseason and guys going to other places, but we do need some youth, guys who are hungry for that respect and trying to earn it, getting that edge back to us, the competitive aspect of guys competing for different spots.”
