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Why the 49ers' Difficult Negotiation with Brandon Aiyuk Feels Different

This Aiyuk situation feels a lot like the DeForest Buckner situation four years ago.

Grant Cohn

Feb 7, 2024; Las Vegas, NV, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk (11) during a press conference before Super Bowl LVIII at Hilton Lake Las Vegas Resort and Spa. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
Feb 7, 2024; Las Vegas, NV, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk (11) during a press conference before Super Bowl LVIII at Hilton Lake Las Vegas Resort and Spa. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports / Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
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Stop me if you've heard this one before.

Star player on the 49ers wants a contract extension. The negotiation drags into August or September. Along the way the player becomes extremely disgruntled and insiders begin to speculate that he could get traded. He doesn't get traded. He eventually signs an extension and people forget about the entire drama by Week 3 of the regular season.

That's what happened with George Kittle, Deebo Samuel and Nick Bosa. In each case, their deals got done before the regular season started. Is that what we should expect to happen with Brandon Aiyuk, who's currently trying to negotiate a contract extension with the 49ers?

I wouldn't be so sure.

Last year, the 49ers waited until four days before the regular season opener to finalize Bosa's deal. But they always said they would get it done and they never tried to trade him. The negotiation was extremely civil, or at least it seemed civil publicly considering Bosa never voiced any displeasure.

Aiyuk's situation is different. The 49ers did listen to trade offers for him. And then they spent a first-round pick on a player at his position. And then they said they'd make him play on his fifth-year option if he won't come to an agreement with the 49ers on an extension.

This Aiyuk situation feels a lot like the DeForest Buckner situation four years ago. Buckner was a first-round pick who wanted $20 million per season and the 49ers wouldn't give it to him, similar to how Aiyuk wants $30 million and the 49ers won't give that to him. In Buckner's case, they traded him for a pick they used on Javon Kinlaw, which was one of the worst trades ever.

It's possible the 49ers would like to trade Aiyuk but are afraid to trade him because the Buckner trade blew up in their faces.

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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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