How the 49ers Players Feel About Brandon Aiyuk Potentially Leaving

It sure seems like the 49ers offensive weapons are ready to prove they don't need Aiyuk.

Grant Cohn | Aug 8, 2024

Jul 26, 2024; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Deebo Samuel talks to the press during Day 4 of training camp at SAP Performance Facility. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-USA TODAY Sports / D. Ross Cameron-USA TODAY Sports

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San Francisco 49ers

SANTA CLARA -- The 49ers don't seem to be devastated over the potential loss of Brandon Aiyuk.

Of course, they say all the right things. They're respectful. They don't take overt shots at him. Nick Bosa in particular certainly wants the 49ers to re-sign Aiyuk. But the players on offense seem ready to move on without him.

"Obviously as a former teammate, er, teammate of his in general, any teammate that you have, you love and respect them, you want the best for them," running back Christian McCaffrey said Tuesday on The NFL Network. What a Freudian slip. It seems like McCaffrey already thinks of Aiyuk as a former teammate.

Then there's Deebo Samuel who called Jauan Jennings, not Brandon Aiyuk, the 49ers' most consistent wide receiver.

It sure seems like the 49ers offensive weapons are ready to prove they don't need Aiyuk.

Remember, Aiyuk implied that the 49ers lost the Super Bowl because he didn't get the ball enough. And then this offseason, he insisted on becoming the highest-paid player on the offense. He wants a larger role at the expense of his teammates.

Which means his teammates will get more touches if the 49ers trade him. Aiyuk was targeted 110 times last season. If he's off the team, those touches will go to Christian McCaffrey, Kyle Juszczyk, Deebo Samuel, George Kittle and Jauan Jennings. Five players who have been sacrificing for the team for years.

I'm sure all five of them would love to have bigger roles in the offense this season. So while they say they love Aiyuk like a brother, they probably would help him pack his bags on the way out.

Published Aug 8, 2024

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.