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Should the 49ers Have Traded Brandon Aiyuk to the Patriots for Pick 34?

Brandon Aiyuk was given permission to find a trade partner this offseason and was able to identify five teams that are willing to pay him what he wants. One of those teams is the New England Patriots, who reportedly offered the 49ers pick no. 34.

Grant Cohn

Oct 25, 2020; Foxborough, Massachusetts, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk (11) makes a catch on a pass from quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo (not seen) during the second half against the New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Brian Fluharty-USA TODAY Sports
Oct 25, 2020; Foxborough, Massachusetts, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk (11) makes a catch on a pass from quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo (not seen) during the second half against the New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Brian Fluharty-USA TODAY Sports / Brian Fluharty-USA TODAY Sports
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Make this make sense.

The 49ers have offered Brandon Aiyuk $26 million per year because they see him as a good yet replaceable no. 2 receiver. That's why they drafted Ricky Pearsall in Round 1 -- to replace Aiyuk eventually if they don't sign him to an extension.

Aiyuk was given permission to find a trade partner this offseason and was able to identify five teams that are willing to pay him what he wants. One of those teams is the New England Patriots, who reportedly offered the 49ers pick no. 34 in the 2024 NFL Draft in exchange for Aiyuk. And the 49ers said no.

If they see him as nothing more than a replaceable no. 2, they should have been overjoyed to receive a high second-round pick for him. They could have packaged that pick along with their first-round pick which they used on Pearsall to trade up for a franchise offensive tackle.

So yes, the 49ers should have traded Aiyuk to the Patriots. The 49ers still would have had more than enough firepower on offense plus they would have had a high-quality right tackle to pair with future Hall of Fame left tackle Trent Williams.

Now if the 49ers decide to trade Aiyuk, they'll have to trade him for draft picks in 2025 which won't help the 49ers win the Super Bowl this season. And that's really the only goal that matters for the 49ers -- win now. The future is irrelevant. And Aiyuk holding out doesn't help the present at all.

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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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