Is it Smart for the 49ers to Keep Brandon Aiyuk Against His Will?

The 49ers want you to believe that they're not worried about a disgruntled Aiyuk derailing the season.

Grant Cohn | Jul 17, 2024

Feb 5, 2024; Las Vegas, NV, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk (11) talks to the media during Super Bowl LVIII Opening Night at Allegiant Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Lucas Peltier-USA TODAY Sports / Lucas Peltier-USA TODAY Sports

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San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers have all the leverage. You've heard that before.

Brandon Aiyuk recently requested a trade because the 49ers haven't offered the contract extension he believes he's worth and the 49ers don't have to do a thing. Don't have to trade him OR pay him what he wants. Instead, they simply can do nothing and force him to play out the fifth and final year of his rookie contract and then franchise tag him the next two years if they feel like it. That's their leverage.

The 49ers want you to believe that they're not worried about a disgruntled Aiyuk derailing the season. They want you to believe that Aiyuk and Samuel will compete for the right to stay on the team long term and that this competition will bring out the best in both of them and help the team. Because if Aiyuk eventually gets the contract extension he wants, the 49ers won't be able to afford Samuel anymore. He'll have to go.

It's possible the 49ers can channel Aiyuk's anger into a great season for him and the team. It's also possible that forcing him and Samuel to compete for targets will tear the team apart. It's hard enough to get superstars to sacrifice personal glory for the sake of the team, something the 49ers were able to do last year. It's really hard to win when the best players care more about their numbers than winning. And that's the situation the 49ers are creating.

That's why they should give Aiyuk the money he wants or trade him to the Raiders for Davante Adams. One or the other.

Published Jul 17, 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.