Tag: brandon aiyuk contract

Fred Warner finds silver lining in Brandon Aiyuk contract situation

Brandon Aiyuk’s contract talks haven’t been a highlight of the 49ers’ offseason, but Fred Warner found a silver lining.

Brandon Aiyuk’s contract extension was one of the 49ers’ biggest offseason priorities. It still isn’t done just one day shy of the club’s veterans reporting to the team facility for training camp. By most accounts this is some level of mess for San Francisco and their All-Pro wide receiver. Veteran linebacker Fred Warner is choosing to take a different view.

In an interview with Willard and Dibs on 95.7 the Game in San Francisco, Warner said the Aiyuk contract talks are just the reality good teams face.

“When you’re part of such a talented roster this is something that goes on every season,” Warner said via 95.7 the Game. “It’s a good issue to have because it means your players are performing at such a high level.”

This is true. A league with a hard salary cap like the NFL makes team-building especially difficult when a team drafts and develops, or acquires, so many great players.

Warner, Nick Bosa, George Kittle, Trent Williams, Christian McCaffrey, Kyle Juszczyk, Javon Hargrave and Deebo Samuel are all getting paid at or near the top of the market at their positions.

Now it’s Aiyuk’s turn to get paid a contract that puts him at or near the top of the wide receiver market. The problem is the 49ers also have a massive extension looming for quarterback Brock Purdy.

The machinations of all this matter less than Warner’s overall point that this Aiyuk situation stems from the 49ers having so many good players. Massaging the cap and maneuvering to find room for all that talent is extremely difficult, but it’s a much better problem to have to solve than simply finding any kind of talent.

Ideally for the 49ers they’ll continue to have this problem in the future since acquiring more good players to replace some of the ones they’ll inevitably lose will be required to keep their Super Bowl window open.

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Report: 5 teams would’ve paid Brandon Aiyuk after pre-draft trade

There were 5 teams willing to pay Brandon Aiyuk before the draft according to one report.

There’s a new wrinkle in the Brandon Aiyuk saga.

According to Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk there were as many as five teams before the draft that would have been willing to pay Aiyuk up to $28 million per year had the 49ers been willing to trade him.

It’s not a surprise that San Francisco explored the trade market for the receiver. It’s also not a surprise that Aiyuk’s representatives went looking for what the All-Pro wide receiver  was worth to teams in search of help at the position. However, that so many teams were willing to pony up on a deal for him helps explain why Aiyuk is so dug in on whatever his present demand is.

If Aiyuk wanted $28 million before the draft, there’s a chance that number has ticked up as the market has settled. If the 49ers are still below that mark, it stands to reason that the WR isn’t willing to come down since the market has dictated to him that his demand should actually be higher.

On the other hand, none of this provides any further incentive for the 49ers to trade Aiyuk. Before the draft there wasn’t an offer they were willing to take for him. It certainly doesn’t seem likely a team would now be willing to bring offer even more, which is what it would take to pry him away from San Francisco at this stage of the calendar.

The underlying truth of all this is still here and perhaps even more clear after this report: the 49ers don’t want to trade Brandon Aiyuk.

A contract extension is going to require some form of compromise between the two sides. Given what we know about the market, the 49ers should be willing to come up toward that $28 million per year number. They could even get it to look like $30 million per with the way they structure the deal. Signs point to that eventually happening though since there’s incentive for both the 49ers and Aiyuk to get a deal done at this point. It’s just a matter of getting through the sticky parts of the negotiation to reach a number both sides are comfortable with.

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Brandon Aiyuk trade request might delay 49ers willingness to negotiate

Brandon Aiyuk’s wait for a deal might get longer after his trade request.

The 49ers apparently haven’t been willing to negotiate with Brandon Aiyuk about a new contract since May. That was part of the reported reason Aiyuk requested a trade in mid-July. However, his trade request could further delay San Francisco’s willingness to come to the negotiating table.

This isn’t the first time the 49ers have dealt with a trade request from a player seeking a new contract. It very likely won’t be the last. In the past those requests haven’t pushed the team to cave. They’ve set a precedent that trade requests don’t spur action. If they have a goal of not rewarding trade requests, they might be inclined to wait on negotiating with Aiyuk.

News of Aiyuk’s trade request came down July 16 — the day rookies reported to camp for the 49ers. That means there was a week until Aiyuk and the rest of the veterans were due to report to camp. This is about the time San Francisco might be more willing to move on their offer a little. The problem is there’s potential if they hammer out a deal now that the request, at least outwardly, appeared to spark their move back to the table.

Perhaps the team doesn’t care. Perhaps they view the request as a usual tactic that exists only as fodder for internet discourse. However, if their goal is to ensure they’re not setting a precedent where a trade request lands a player a new contract, then Aiyuk’s long wait for an extension might have to drag out even longer.

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Brandon Aiyuk trade request doesn’t change anything in contract negotiation

Brandon Aiyuk’s trade request doesn’t change much in his contract negotiations:

Brandon Aiyuk has officially requested a trade. The only surprising part of that is how long it took to reach this point. A trade request is a hallmark of even semi-sticky contract negotiations, right up there with deleting photos and unfollowing teams on various social media. Deebo Samuel’s request, for example, came before the draft in April. Aiyuk’s didn’t get reported until the middle of July. Despite the late hour of the request, it ultimately doesn’t change much in his negotiation with San Francisco.

While Aiyuk has now made his displeasure with the lack of movement on negotiations public in a new way, the 49ers still hold virtually all of the cards.

San Francisco wants to operate on a timeline where this deal is getting done closer to training camp. That’s slated to begin a little more than a week after the trade request became public, which means it’s high time for the 49ers front office to return to the negotiating table and get serious about hammering out an extension.

The problem for Aiyuk is he doesn’t have many options for combatting this strategy by the team. He’s under contract for the 2024 season. A year-long holdout doesn’t allow a season to accrue, which puts him back in the same spot next offseason. Even if he plays this year on his fifth-year option, the 49ers have the franchise tag to use next offseason.

Of all the potential outcomes here, a trade appears to be the least likely. The 49ers are trying to win a Super Bowl and moving on from Aiyuk makes them dramatically worse.  That is, unless a team wants to trade a similar caliber player for him, but those types of trades don’t tend to happen in the NFL. A team aiming to acquire Aiyuk might throw in a lesser player, but they’ll be more willing to unload draft capital which ultimately doesn’t help San Francisco get closer to its goal of winning a Super Bowl this year.

Aiyuk’s trade request will make waves and it’ll make fans of the Commanders and Steelers excited, but the request doesn’t have to be granted and the 49ers don’t have much incentive to do so.

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49ers WR Brandon Aiyuk requests trade

BREAKING: Brandon Aiyuk has requested a trade from the 49ers.

The Brandon Aiyuk contract negotiations have reached an impasse and the All-Pro wide receiver has requested a trade from the San Francisco 49ers according to NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo.

Garafolo reports that there have been several unsuccessful attempts to reach a contract extension. In fact, despite a recent meeting between the two sides, the 49ers haven’t been open to engaging in negotiations since May, which is why Aiyuk has requested to be traded.

San Francisco has had success in finding a middle ground with their players looking for long-term extensions, but the exploding wide receiver market put Aiyuk’s asking price at a point the 49ers apparently aren’t willing to come down for.

It’s unclear whether the team will facilitate a deal. They’d likely need to receive a player in the trade since they’ll be aiming to find an asset that can help them win the Super Bowl in 2024.

They could also choose not to move Aiyuk in hopes of eventually reaching a deal. If not, they could force Aiyuk to play on his fifth-year option and kick the negotiation can further down the road.

Aiyuk was a Second-Team All-Pro last season after hauling in 75 receptions for 1,342 yards and seven touchdowns.

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Another reason why 49ers should absolutely pay Brandon Aiyuk

Another reason the 49ers should be paying Brandon Aiyuk.

There are some fair questions raised regarding whether the 49ers should be shelling out top-five receiver money for wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk. His overall volume in a run-heavy offense leads to a conclusion that perhaps a lesser WR could be valuable enough to save the team some money for other areas of the roster.

While that’s a fair question, there’s a pretty clear answer that not just anyone could do what Aiyuk is doing, and there are plenty of peripheral stats to prove it.

First, Matt Harmon of reception perception wrote a piece detailing exactly how Aiyuk provides value for San Francisco just as a pass catcher, which doesn’t even account for his high-level run-blocking. Here’s the visual profile Harmon put together off of his piece (which we highly recommend diving into):

There just aren’t any routes Aiyuk isn’t going to find success on, and that’s why simply replacing him with just any random WR won’t work. It’s hard to be as productive as Aiyuk is in this variety of ways. He maximizes what head coach Kyle Shanahan can do in the passing game because defenses can’t just take away what Aiyuk is good at, because he’s good at everything. And that type of receiver is exceedingly valuable for an offense, and a young franchise QB still carving out his path in the NFL.

Why it’s no surprise the 49ers don’t have deal with Brandon Aiyuk yet

Brandon Aiyuk and the 49ers aren’t closer to a deal according to Mike Garafolo. That shouldn’t come as a huge surprise:

We’ve entered the month of July and the 49ers still don’t have a contract hammered out with wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk. That’s not a huge surprise given their typical timeline on these deals. That same logic applies to a recent report from NFL Media’s Mike Garafolo that indicated San Francisco and their All-Pro WR aren’t any closer to a deal than they were prior to Aiyuk’s meeting with the team at the end of June.

Garafolo in an appearance on NFL Network’s ‘The Insiders’ said the two sides aren’t closer to a deal, but it also doesn’t sound like they’re drifting further apart.

“For Aiyuk and the 49ers, they had conversations recently,” Garafolo said via 49ers Webzone. “They are no closer to a deal from my understanding, but they are also no closer to a trade request. That’s never been something that he has explored in this case. Besides, he’s got to get back to work sometime before training camp to see if they can get something done.”

Aiyuk’s meeting with the 49ers clearly wasn’t one last chance to hammer out a contract. Reporting about the meeting indicated it was a chance for both sides to say some things that needed to be said after a handful of public reports about the negotiations.

Generally the timeline for the 49ers on these deals has them ironed out closer to the start of training camp, if not a handful of days into camp.

If there’s an agreement to be reached it would likely be closer to that point in late July. With a few weeks until veterans report to camp, it makes sense the two sides haven’t been working toward some kind of middle ground in early July. If it gets to July 23 when veterans report and Aiyuk and the 49ers are still far apart — there’ll be some cause for concern. Until that point though this train appears to be following the same track their other long-term contract negotiations have.

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Why 49ers hold leverage in Brandon Aiyuk contract talks

The 49ers hold the leverage in the Brandon Aiyuk contract talks, but that’s not without risk for the team.

There’s an aspect of the Brandon Aiyuk-49ers contract discussions that doesn’t come up much when discussing whether he’ll stay with San Francisco. It isn’t as black and white as ‘he stays on a long-term extension or gets traded,’ and that’s because the team holds virtually all of the leverage.

Aiyuk is under contract for the 2024 season because the 49ers picked up the fifth-year option on his rookie deal. San Francisco would surely like to get a deal done to lock the All-Pro WR in for the next few seasons. They don’t have to though.

The 49ers could decide to let Aiyuk play out the final year of his rookie contract and then franchise tag him next year. The aggregate total of those two years would land just over $38 million since his fifth-year option is $14ish million and the projected franchise tag number on Over the Cap is sitting at just above $24 million.

If Aiyuk decides not to play in 2024, he won’t accrue a season and he’ll be right back in the same spot next year without having gotten paid for the 2024 campaign. It seems like a stretch that he’d rather do this than ink a deal or run the risk of getting hurt and damaging his long-term value. And that’s what the 49ers are banking on.

The team can sit back and wait because if they do nothing this year, they have Aiyuk under contract, and then they can utilize a franchise tag to keep him around another year. Their hope is that as training camp draws closer and Aiyuk starts standing to lose money for missing those practices that he’ll come down on whatever his number is to ink that long-term deal that gives him security over the next few seasons.

There’s some risk in this for the 49ers though. Aiyuk would likely cost more against the cap if they do the fifth-year plus the franchise tag. And if he keeps performing well his price will only go up. That’s where the team will have to be flexible in coming up from whatever their number is to try and meet Aiyuk in the middle.

San Francisco has the leverage though, but it does come with some risk. That’s true for both sides, which is why by the time camp rolls around we should see some kind of action where Aiyuk signs a deal that pays him like one of the league’s 5 or 8 best receivers.

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Ian Rapoport: 49ers do want Brandon Aiyuk, contract talks not dead

Ian Rapoport shed some light on the Brandon Aiyuk contract talks, and actually provided some optimism.

Brandon Aiyuk’s TikTok that appeared to show him saying the 49ers don’t want him contributed to the firehose of pessimism that has drenched the discussion around Aiyuk’s future with San Francisco. NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport on NFL Network shed some light on the Aiyuk-49ers negotiations.

Rapoport said that while he was surprised by the video, the negotiations are still ongoing.

“They do want him,” Rapoport said. “They just want him at their price. It is not a negotiation that to my knowledge is completely dead, they just have not done a deal yet. It’s pretty clear that Brandon Aiyuk wants the kind of money that Amon-Ra St. Brown ended up making – about $28 million average over the first three years of his deal – the 49ers are not there yet. They like him. They really like him. They just have not been able to come together on a deal. So maybe that’s kind of the feeling that Brandon Aiyuk was trying to give out.”

While the 49ers’ negotiation style that runs deals right up to training camp or beyond is nerve-wracking and lends itself to discourse like what we’ve seen around Aiyuk, it has also been successful. It’s a good sign that Rapoport’s reporting indicates negotiations are still going and that the 49ers do in fact want Aiyuk.

If Rapoport’s (or another insider’s) tone changes, then it might be time for 49ers fans to panic. Until then though, most of this is par for the course.

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Brandon Aiyuk viral video much ado about nothing

Brandon Aiyuk’s viral video generated a reaction from fans, but it probably didn’t do much to move the 49ers.

Brandon Aiyuk on Monday sent the portion of the internet occupied by 49ers fans into a fervor when he posted a video on TikTok that appears to show him telling Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels that the 49ers told Aiyuk they don’t want him anymore.

There are some assumptions that have to be made with the video – specifically that Aiyuk is talking about the 49ers – but it’s still much ado about nothing in regards to Aiyuk’s future with San Francisco.

Let’s operate as though he is talking about the 49ers in this video and that the team did relay that kind of message.

There are a few things to take into account here.

First, this conversation between Aiyuk and his former teammate at Arizona State was being filmed. There’s also a reason it was posted online. It was aimed at drawing a reaction from fans since negotiations are likely not going great since the 49ers notoriously wait until closer to training camp to get any real movement going on a contract.

Second, it’s hard to believe the 49ers outright told Aiyuk they don’t want him. They may have told him they don’t want him at some astronomical price point, but it’s night impossible to believe they with any sincerity told one of their best players that they no longer want him on the team. That’s also the opposite of everything anyone with the club has said publicly.

If Aiyuk was told outright that the 49ers don’t want him, it’s far more likely a negotiating tactic by the club than it is a shift in their feelings about retaining the All-Pro WR.

Most of this is still following the usual negotiation playbook. Aiyuk hasn’t requested a trade (or it hasn’t been made public), and his social media still includes photos of his time with the 49ers. Those are two crucial components of the player negotiation playbook that haven’t been executed just yet.

Instead, Aiyuk went with a more aggressive social media attack that dispensed with the symbolism of hiding photos and went straight for the jugular.

It succeeded in getting some portion of the fan base to freak out. It’s hard to fathom the video having any bearing on the 49ers’ front office and their stance on what they want to pay Aiyuk. Chances are better than not that the two sides eventually come together sometime in late July or early August like we’ve seen with past deals.

Until then we’ll have to grasp onto whatever bits of negotiations reach the public. Chances are those will almost all come from Aiyuk’s social media. They’ll all be impactful in creating a reaction, but they’re unlikely to move the needle when it comes to the actual contract talks.

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