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NFL Insider: Other Teams Will Pay 49ers WR Brandon Aiyuk What He Wants

The 49ers didn't deny that they allowed Aiyuk and his agent to seek a trade before the draft.

Grant Cohn

January 20, 2024; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk (11) reacts during the fourth quarter against the Green Bay Packers in a 2024 NFC divisional round game at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
January 20, 2024; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk (11) reacts during the fourth quarter against the Green Bay Packers in a 2024 NFC divisional round game at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports / Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
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Now we're beginning to see why the 49ers haven't yet been able to come to an agreement on a contract extension with Brandon Aiyuk.

The 49ers reportedly have offered him what they believe is a fair and generous contract extension worth $26 million per season. Aiyuk, however, seems to want more than $30 million per season, and there is at least one team that's willing to give him that contract according to ESPN's Jeremy Fowler.

"They had some trade opportunities around the draft, and I think there are other teams that are willing to pay him what he wants," Fowler said recently on ESPN. "I do believe that. So maybe not a first-round pick in a trade, but I think they would do it under certain circumstances."

The 49ers didn't deny that they allowed Aiyuk and his agent to seek a trade before the draft. Clearly, they couldn't find a team that was willing to give the 49ers the draft capital they wanted in return for Aiyuk. But they did apparently find more than one team that is willing to give Aiyuk the extension he wants.

So that explains why Aiyuk won't budge or compromise. Why should he? As long as he's patient and he stays healthy, which he has been able to do so far in his career, he'll get all the money he wants and more considering the wide receiver market gets crazier every day.

I'm guessing one team that is willing to give Brandon Aiyuk more than $30 million per season is the Pittsburgh Steelers because they have one of the cheapest quarterback rooms in the NFL plus they've been linked to Aiyuk all offseason.

Which means the Steelers probably are making things difficult for the 49ers right now.

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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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