DEAL DONE: San fransisco sign a key player..

Santa Clara, California (AP) Nick Bosa’s lengthy contract stalemate with the San Francisco 49ers ended four days before the season began when he agreed to a contract deal that will make him the NFL’s costliest defensive player ever.

Coach Kyle Shanahan announced Wednesday that the two parties had reached an agreement and that Bosa was on his way to the team’s facilities. Shanahan is relieved that he can no longer imagine the Niners starting the season without their finest defensive player.

“You try not to think about it much because it’s not really in my control and let the process play itself out,” he said. “As the weekend progressed, I gradually realized that we wouldn’t be playing with him. If I had gone back and forth, I would have been unhappy. I simply decided we weren’t. It’s a huge bonus to have him here. “We are obviously very excited about it.”

It’s unclear how much he’ll be able to play after spending the entire training camp working out alone.

“We’ll see when he gets here,” Shanahan explained. “I know Nick will get in shape. I am confident that he will be fine. We’ll be clever about it, and it’ll be based on the following two practices.

The league and union may disagree on many issues, but they appear to share a commitment to prioritizing mental health and making treatments more accessible.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the number of players speaking with mental health professionals has progressively increased, according to the league and union.

“Post-pandemic, we’ve seen an uptick in the willingness to have conversations about getting help and a normalizing of challenges like anxiety and depression,” Nyaka NiiLampti, the NFL’s vice president of clinical and wellness services, said in a recent telephone interview. “There’s also an increase in the recognition that you can’t have optimal physical performance if you’re not optimizing mental performance.”

During his rookie season this year, Lions quarterback Hendon Hooker tried to keep his mind right while recovering from a knee injury that ended his college career at Tennessee and dealing with the death of loved ones. Hooker said he spoke with Michelle Garvin, a clinical psychologist who works with the Lions and co-directors of player engagement, to develop strategies such as learning how to sleep better.