San Francisco 49ers general manager John Lynch has already made a splash for his up-and-coming team in free agency this offseason.

After the monster five-year contract extension worth up to $137.5 million rewarded to rising star quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, Lynch stayed busy with the signings of star cornerback Richard Sherman, center Weston Richburg, running back Jerick McKinnon, and others.

However, according to an article written earlier today by 49ers beat reporter Eric Branch of the San Francisco Chronicle, it sounds like a majority of the remaining $33 million in team cap space will not be spent in free agency.

“We’re not all the way done yet, perhaps,” Lynch said earlier this week. “We’ll use that wisely. We got the guys that we targeted that would help us best become a better football team.”

Instead of signing more free agents, Lynch would prefer to save that cap space money in favor of rewarding younger players with contract extensions in the future.

“Our promise is that we will spend every dollar of that,” Lynch said. “But we’ve got a lot of players that we think are young talented players that are going be coming up for extensions.”

Lynch may have recently foreshadowed the Niners' approach to free agency when he opened up about it during the 2018 NFL Scouting Combine.

“We have high expectations, but we’re not one player away,” Lynch said. “So we never want to sacrifice the fact that we really want to build this thing for sustained success. We want to do things that fit — and fit into our idea that we’re setting this thing up not just for a one- or two-year run, but to really compete every year.”

After the Niners' five consecutive wins to finish the 2017-18 season at 6-10, San Francisco will look to be a dark horse next season in the NFC West division hunt or sneak into the playoffs as a wild-card team.