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There wasn’t much good to pull from the 49ers’ Week 9 loss to the Cardinals. It was, in all ways, an abysmal defeat. One thing that stood out Sunday as a plus for San Francisco was the emergence of wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk for the second consecutive week.
Aiyuk, a week after earning seven targets in Chicago, tied for the team lead with eight targets against the Cardinals. It appeared there was a concerted effort to get the ball in his hands after six weeks of active avoidance of the second-year receiver by 49ers quarterbacks. He finished Sunday’s game with six catches for 89 yards and a touchdown on a season-high eight targets.
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In Weeks 1-7, Aiyuk was targeted 16 times. He notched 9 receptions for 96 yards and a touchdown. He was on a 17-game pace of 45 targets, 26 catches, 272 yards and three touchdowns.
In the last two games his numbers skyrocketed to 15 targets, 10 receptions, 134 yards and a touchdown. That’s a 17-game pace of 128 targets, 85 catches, 1,139 yards and nine touchdowns.
This is the player the 49ers have needed since Week 1, and the player they’ll need for the rest of the year if they’re going to keep their increasingly faint playoff hopes alive.
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