THE WONDER OF WARNER

49ers make All-Pro star highest-paid LB in NFL

- Craig Massei

Fred Warner is what the NFL dream looks like in person. A leader. A warrior. A budding superstar. A shining example of hard work, perseverance and how to do things the right way.

A first-team All-Pro now arguably the best dang linebacker in the entire league.

And now, the highest-paid linebacker in NFL history. No argument about that.

With 2021 training camp looming, the 49ers weren’t about to allow their defensive leader to set foot on the practice field without the massive raise and huge contract he most certainly deserves.

Warner raised the bar for linebackers throughout the league when he signed a five-year, $95.225 million contract extension with the 49ers, July 22, a deal that includes $40.5 million in guaranteed money. Warner’s average annual salary of $19 million puts him ahead of Seattle All-Pro linebacker Bobby Wagner ($18 million per year) as the NFL’s new standard-bearer at the position.

“I think it’s something that happened organically throughout the process,” Warner said. “The only thing I wanted was to, obviously, be a Niner for a long time and to get what I deserved. We did both of those things. It just happened to be that we moved the needle in the right direction for the rest of the inside linebackers in the league.”

Special guys get special treatment. And so do special players.

Warner lifted himself into that category last year as the mainstay of a San Francisco defense — and the entire team, for that matter — that somehow managed to remain a top-5 NFL unit despite a season-long succession of injuries to key players that forced 12 different defensive regulars to miss games to injury — some of them for extended periods and others for almost the entirety of the season.