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Is 49ers WR Brandon Aiyuk On the Verge of a Down Season?

Not a great start to the year.

Grant Cohn

Dec 10, 2023; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk (11) fumbles the ball in front of Seattle Seahawks safety Julian Love (20) in the fourth quarter at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports
Dec 10, 2023; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk (11) fumbles the ball in front of Seattle Seahawks safety Julian Love (20) in the fourth quarter at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports / Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports
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Brandon Aiyuk is coming off the first Pro Bowl season of his career. Can he replicate it, or is he on the verge of a down season?

Aiyuk certainly is an outstanding wide receiver and one of the best route runners in the NFL as well as an exceptional blocker. But last season may have been an outlier for Aiyuk. He averaged a whopping 17.9 yards per catch, which nearly led the entire NFL. A very impressive statistic. But the previous season, he averaged just 13.0 yards per catch. And the season before that, he averaged 14.8 yards per catch.

So it's likely Aiyuk will have a statistical regression this season. He probably won't catch more than 75 passes because the 49ers run the ball so much, and he probably will average fewer than 17.9 yards per catch.

In addition, he skipped OTAs and minicamp and might skip training camp and preseason too unless the 49ers extend his contract soon. And if he misses an entire offseason, it seems highly unlikely that he will replicate his career-best performance from last season when he missed zero offseason practices.

That's why the 49ers would be wise to wait before giving Aiyuk an extension. Make him prove that 2023 wasn't an aberration. Make him show that he can be a Pro Bowler even without a full offseason. Before if he misses the Pro Bowl, he'll be seen as a one-hit wonder and his price tag will go down.

Not a great start to the year for Aiyuk.

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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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