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Is Kyle Shanahan Looking for Reasons to Yell at 49ers WR Brandon Aiyuk?

Something tells me the cold war between these two has just begun.

Grant Cohn

Sep 15, 2024; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan reacts during the fourth quarter against the Minnesota Vikings U.S. Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeffrey Becker-Imagn Images
Sep 15, 2024; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan reacts during the fourth quarter against the Minnesota Vikings U.S. Bank Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeffrey Becker-Imagn Images / Jeffrey Becker-Imagn Images
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Kyle Shanahan and Brandon Aiyuk don't seem to have the strongest relationship.

Shanahan is a control freak and Aiyuk seems to have issues with authority, so they're an awkward pair. And it seems like their relationship never has recovered since Shanahan put Aiyuk in his proverbial doghouse in 2021.

All the playmakers on the 49ers except Aiyuk seem appreciative of Shanahan. Aiyuk is the only one who acts as though Shanahan has held him back and made him look bad.

And so this offseason, Aiyuk made Shanahan look bad. Held in so he would avoid fines but still refused to practice. Showed up to the practice field every once in a while just to hijack the spotlight and show everyone that he was above the rules and privileged.

Cut to this past Friday. Aiyuk was coming off a disappointing performance in Los Angeles during which he was open for a potential long pass in the fourth quarter but Brock Purdy didn't throw him the ball. So Aiyuk showed up to Friday's practice wearing the wrong shorts -- a dress code violation. Aiyuk knows the rules. He broke them anyway.

Maybe Shanahan hasn't enforced this rule in the past. But on Friday, he went out of his way to yell at Aiyuk for two minutes in front of the team and the media. Shanahan seemed to want people to see him put Aiyuk in his place.

And when I asked Shanahan after practice if Aiyuk had worn the wrong shorts, Shanahan smiled and said, "Good question."

Something tells me the cold war between these two has just begun.

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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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