49ers look at Jacquies Smith, Bucs restricted free agent

The San Francisco 49ers are hosting defensive end Jacquies Smith for a visit, according to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport. Smith is a restricted free agent coming off an ACL injury which robbed him of all but the first few snaps of the 2016 season.

The Bucs tendered Smith at the low level, which comes with a compensation of just over $1.7 million and gives the Bucs the right of first refusal. That is: if the 49ers and Smith reach an agreement on a contract, the Bucs will get the right to match that contract and keep Smith on those terms.

Those kinds of moves are somewhat rare, though, and usually teams reach some kind of deal. When the Bucs reached an agreement with the Detroit Lions’ George Johnson in 2015, the two teams eventually decided to turn it into a trade, with the Bucs giving up a fifth-round pick and receiving Johnson and a seventh-round pick.

All of that is a little premature now, though. It’s not clear how eager the Bucs are to keep Smith, though if they lose him they would only really have Noah Spence as a pass-rush specialist. If they do want to keep him, though, they can easily match any reasonable contract the 49ers would hand to Smith — or at least, they have the cap space to do so.