It’s official: Brandon Aiyuk formally requested the San Francisco 49ers trade him to a team willing to pay him what he feels he’s worth. Aiyuk earned a spot on the All-Pro second team last season after posting a career-high 1,342 receiving yards (at a very impressive 17.9 yards per catch), but the 49ers haven’t budged in contract talks or seriously considered offers from other teams. They want him to remain a fixture in Kyle Shanahan’s offense, and at their preferred price point.
Could the New Orleans Saints get involved? They should have a good handle on Aiyuk’s strengths and what makes him tick after they hired one of his coaches to call plays for them this year, and Klint Kubiak would probably enjoy working with him again. But it’s complicated. You have to consider the salary cap commitments as well as the draft capital involved in a potential deal like this. To say nothing of San Francisco’s reluctance to even pick up the phone.
So we collaborated with Niners Wire managing editor Kyle Madson on hypothetical trade talks between the two teams. We made him an offer that feels realistic, and he countered with what he believes the 49ers would be seeking. Here’s how it shook out:
New Orleans gets: WR Brandon Aiyuk
San Francisco gets: 2025 second-round pick, 2026 third-round pick
Madson’s response: “If San Francisco was cool with taking a deal like this, which in a lot of cases is a pretty substantial offer, then Aiyuk likely would’ve been traded during the draft so the 49ers could recoup an asset to help them in 2024. Decent offer from the Saints, but we’re going to decline.”
He then made a counteroffer, proposing a player-for-player swap.
New Orleans gets: WR Brandon Aiyuk, 2025 fourth-round pick
San Francisco gets: WR Chris Olave, 2025 fifth-round pick
Now we’re cooking with gas. It would be painful to give up Olave — he’s one of the team’s young stars — but it almost makes sense when you take a bird’s eye view of the situation. If the Saints are trading for Aiyuk, it’s because they plan to pay him top dollar. And that’s money which would otherwise be earmarked for Olave’s extension once he’s eligible for it in a few years. They’re effectively choosing Aiyuk over Olave anyway, so making him part of the trade to facilitate Aiyuk’s extension is actually kind of coldly rational. Bumping that future draft pick up a round (a 26-slot jump, potentially, based off this year’s draft order) isn’t bad at all.
But would the Saints do this? Almost certainly not. They’ve had opportunities to break the bank in free agency this offseason and they repeatedly chose not to, instead taking small steps towards conventional salary cap management. Sure, they could trade for Aiyuk and fit a hefty contract extension on the books. But that doesn’t mean they should. If they aren’t going in to sign a top-tier defensive tackle like Christian Wilkins (who is earning $27.5 million per year) or trading for a blue-chip defensive end like Brian Burns (who signed a new deal averaging $28.2 million with his new team), they shouldn’t be making those kind of moves at positions like wide receiver. Not when they’re developing a star in Olave who is rapidly approaching the same heights Aiyuk has reached.
A blockbuster trade for Aiyuk would be fun, and it would absolutely raise expectations for this Saints team. It would also be prohibitively expensive. but at a time when the Saints are pinching pennies and trying to get their books in order while counting on a weak division to keep them competitive, it seems more like the stuff of daydreams.
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