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Will the 49ers Trade Brandon Aiyuk this Offseason?

I would not be surprised.

Grant Cohn

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The 49ers have a big decision to make.

Will they extend Brandon Aiyuk's contract and give him more than $25 million per season, which is what he's worth, or will they trade him for a first-round pick?

Trading Aiyuk for a pick sounds like a crazy idea, but remember, the 49ers traded DeForest Buckner for a first-rounder in 2020 because they didn't want to pay him more than $20 million per season. So there's precedent.

Aiyuk was a second-team All Pro wide receiver, which means he's one of the top seven wideouts in the NFL, and he's still improving. He will be extremely expensive.

And the 49ers already have an expensive wide receiver -- Deebo Samuel. He is scheduled to cost the 49ers more than $28 million against the cap next season. And trading Samuel would be expensive, too. Would cost the 49ers more than $21 million in dead cap space to trade him. It would be much easier to trade Aiyuk.

And the 49ers throw the ball less than every other team in the NFL -- they ranked 32nd out of 32 teams in pass attempts this past season. It would be foolish of them to spend more than $50 million per season on wide receivers when they don't want to throw the ball.

I would not be surprised if the 49ers trade Aiyuk this season. Trading him would be a huge mistake, because he's the only weapon on their offense who's getting better. But this is the same team that trade Buckner for no good reason. I could absolutely see the 49ers flipping Aiyuk for a draft pick and keeping Samuel instead when they should do the opposite.

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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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