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Is Brandon Aiyuk a Top 5 Wide Receiver in the NFL?

Aiyuk sees himself as a top-five wide receiver in the NFL who's worth more than $27 million per season.

Grant Cohn

Feb 11, 2024; Paradise, Nevada, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk (11) catches a
Feb 11, 2024; Paradise, Nevada, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk (11) catches a / Stephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY Sports

The 49ers and Brandon Aiyuk reportedly are far apart in negotiations for a contract extension.

Aiyuk sees himself as a top-five wide receiver in the NFL who's worth more than $27 million per season. It's unclear if the 49ers see him that way, too. They obviously like him, but do they love him enough to pay him nearly $30 million per season and give more than 150 targets per season?

If they don't, another team should, because advanced statistics suggest Aiyuk actually is a top-three wide receiver in the NFL right now.

According to SIS Data Hub's advanced receiving metric, Aiyuk was the third-best wide receiver in the NFL last season behind CeeDee Lamb and Amon-Ra St. Brown. Which means they ranked Aiyuk ahead of Tyreek Hill, who earns $30 million per season.

When you look at the advanced statistics, it's easy to see why Aiyuk is ranked so high. Aiyuk caught 75 passes during the regular season, and 62 of them picked up first downs -- that's 82.7 percent, which led the NFL. In addition, quarterbacks had a passer rating of 124.7 when targeting him, which was third-highest in the league. His efficiency is off the charts. And that doesn't even factor in his blocking, which is elite for a wide receiver.

The only thing Aiyuk doesn't do is carry the ball on end arounds and jet sweeps, because that's Deebo Samuel's. Everything else Aiyuk does at an elite level. There might not be a more well-rounded wide receiver in the NFL.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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