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Sports Illustrated Says the 49ers Need Brandon Aiyuk to Win a Super Bowl
One of the best debates in football right now is whether the 49ers should give Brandon Aiyuk the extension he wants.
The wide receiver market has become outrageous and now Aiyuk is worth more on the open market than he is to the 49ers who ranked 32 out of 32 teams in pass attempts last season. And yet Sports Illustrated's Gilberto Manzano says the 49ers need to pay up.
"Aiyuk dropped this memorable line during his interview on the Pivot Podcast: “If you can't afford a Lamborghini, you can't have one." Well said, but the 49ers better figure out how to pay for that Lamborghini, because they’re going to need Aiyuk to win this season’s Super Bowl.
- GIlberto Manzano, Sports Illustrated.
"Aiyuk might not be the best skill player on his team which also features Christian McCaffrey and Deebo Samuel, but he might be the most important player to Brock Purdy, the 49ers’ young star quarterback who is known for occasional erratic performances. Aiyuk is an elite route runner, and his ability to quickly get open and make plays has helped Purdy find his rhythm early in games. If the 49ers trade Aiyuk because of the contract dispute, the team runs the risk of hurting Purdy’s growth heading into his third NFL season.
"Sure, the 49ers have some leverage because they drafted Ricky Pearsall in the first round and there’s plenty of depth at pass catcher with Samuel, Jauan Jennings and tight end George Kittle. But Aiyuk is their best wide receiver coming off a breakout 2023 season in which he caught 75 passes for 1,342 yards and seven touchdowns. The 49ers need Aiyuk for Purdy and their Super Bowl hopes this season. They better pay for that Lamborghini or the Detroit Lions might be the best team in the NFC."
Manzano makes lots of great points, but he glosses over the fact that Aiyuk has had just one special season and it was the regular season. In the playoffs, Aiyuk didn't produce. He caught just 9 passes in three games and Purdy's quarterback rating when targeting him was a mere 87. So even if the 49ers have Aiyuk, who's to say they're the best team in the NFC? The Lions almost beat them in the NFC Championship last season and since then have improved their defense significantly while the 49ers didn't improve this offseason.
Throwing money at Aiyuk won't bring the 49ers their sixth Lombardi Trophy.
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.