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Do the 49ers Already Regret Extending Brandon Aiyuk's Contract?

To be fair, players who hold out of training camp almost always struggle to start the season.

Grant Cohn

Sep 22, 2024; Inglewood, California, USA; Los Angeles Rams cornerback Tre'Davious White (27) defends San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk (11) on a pass play in the first half at SoFi Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images
Sep 22, 2024; Inglewood, California, USA; Los Angeles Rams cornerback Tre'Davious White (27) defends San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk (11) on a pass play in the first half at SoFi Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images / Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images
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It's early, but it seems unlikely Brandon Aiyuk ever will live up to the outrageous contract extension the 49ers gave him this offseason.

He could have signed a deal in May that would have paid him $26 million per season, but he held out until September to get a deal that's worth $30 million per season. So he made himself a target of criticism. And through three games this season, he hasn't produced. He has just 11 catches on a whopping 20 targets for 119 yards and 0 touchdowns. That's a career-low 10.8 yards per catch. Last season, he averaged 17.9 yards per catch. He looks like a shell of himself.

To be fair, players who hold out of training camp almost always struggle to start the season. CeeDee Lamb did the same thing Aiyuk did this offseason and hasn't lived up to his standards yet this season, either. So it's likely Aiyuk will bounce back to a degree.

But the 49ers never will feature Aiyuk enough to justify paying him $30 million per season. And that's because Jauan Jennings exists. As long as Jennings is on the 49ers, he should get more targets than Aiyuk because Jennings has improved while Aiyuk has regressed.

Jennings is a better all-around wide receiver than Aiyuk. Aiyuk is simply faster than Jennings, but Jennings is averaging 15.3 yards per catch this season, which means he's playing faster than Aiyuk.

Knowing what the 49ers do now if they could go back in time and trade Aiyuk to the Steelers, I'm guessing they would.

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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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