San Francisco 49ers WR Brandon Aiyuk has officially requested a trade after months of failed negotiations on a second contract, and I'm here to tell you that the 49ers aren't going to trade him this year. Aiyuk is set to play on his fifth-year option worth a little north of $14M this season but wants to get a new deal in place before playing again and risking injury. He was reportedly offered a $26M annual contract but is likely feeling disrespected after the receiver market skyrocketed this offseason and teams have given new deals to Justin Jefferson, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Devonta Smith, Jaylen Waddle, and Michael Pitman. Aiyuk is coming off a career season where he had 75 catches, 1,342 yards, and 7 touchdowns, and according to ESPN Analytics was the most open receiver in the league. There's no shortage of teams that need a 26-year-old receiver as talented as him. I just find it difficult to believe the 49ers would actually trade a player as good as Aiyuk at this point in the offseason. Let’s get into how this trade request got to this point in the first place, the reasons why I don’t see a trade happening this year, and we'll end with which teams could even theoretically trade for Aiyuk.
Why is Aiyuk Requesting a Trade?
The reason Aiyuk is requesting a trade is the lack of a contract extension, the massive gap in negotiations between the 49ers and Aiyuk, and the unlikelihood that they can come to an agreement before the season. Again, the reported offer is $26M annually, and while at first glance that seems like it could be a good deal for him, we need to take a look at how that would place him in the WR hierarchy. The top 8 WR contracts by average value per year are Justin Jefferson ($35M), A.J. Brown ($32M), Amon Ra St. Brown ($30M), Tyreek Hill ($30M), Jaylen Waddle ($28.25M), Davante Adams ($28M), Cooper Kupp ($26.7M), and Devonta Smith ($25M). Obviously Aiyuk is not on the level of Justin Jefferson, no one is, but it’s hard to argue he’s less valuable than Amon-Ra in Detroit, or Jaylen Waddle in Miami. After they both got deals this offseason that became Aiyuk’s new benchmark. Because Aiyuk, in my opinion, is a more talented player than both, he and his agent can go to the Niners and demand an offer starting at either Amon-Ra’s 4 year and $120,010,000 deal with $77M guaranteed, or Waddle’s 3 year $84.75M deal with $76M guaranteed. The Waddle deal would put Aiyuk $2M annually above the current offer and considering he likely wants either the same or more than Amon Ra, my guess is they’re asking for about $31M. As an NFL player maximizing your second contract is vital as the majority of players don’t end up making it to a third contract with the nature of the sport and prevalence of injuries and athletic fall off with the WR position. The problem that the 49ers are running into is that they’re running out of money to spend and have to account for Purdy’s eventual contract extension. They already have given out big contracts to Nick Bosa ($34M), Deebo Samuel ($23.8M), Trent Williams ($23M), Javon Hargrave ($21M), Fred Warner ($19M), Christian McCaffrey ($19M), and George Kittle ($15M). They’re able to do this because their quarterback Brock Purdy makes only 934K per year while most starting quarterbacks are making at least $10M annually on a rookie contract or at least $40M+ for non-rookie contracts. These savings won’t last much longer though, as Purdy’s eligible for a new contract after the 2024 season, and with the way each new quarterback contract signed is the biggest of all time, combined with Purdy’s elite and consistently improving play he might be in line to top Trevor Lawrence and Joe Burrow’s current league record of $55M annually. They need every penny of savings for Purdy, so even if they know Aiyuk is worth more than they’re offering, they cannot afford to overspend right now. The 49ers have the benefit of having Aiyuk under contract on his fifth-year option and the ability to franchise tag him next season. With the punitive daily fines, they can give Aiyuk for holding out, the 49ers hold all the leverage and have him under their control for the next two seasons. Both camps have very legitimate cases to be made in these contract negotiations because neither can afford to give up their leverage.
Why Won’t Aiyuk Be Traded?
Now that we know why we’re here, let’s dive into why I don’t think he will be traded. The most obvious reason is that the 49ers are Super Bowl contenders and need to win right now while their Purdy savings are still in play. The best possible roster the 49ers can currently have been one with Brandon Aiyuk on it. In their incredibly loaded offense, it’s easy to forget just how good each individual player is, but it’s important to remember that Aiyuk has started to cement himself as a top ten receiver in the league and is their best Man coverage beater. When teams force the 49ers into third and long and play Man, the 49ers usually look to Aiyuk or Jauan Jennings. If you were to take Aiyuk off this team and slide Deebo into the # 1 role, and Jennings into a # 2 role, Purdy’s performance would be significantly hindered against teams that have good Press Man corners. Aiyuk is just too good for the 49ers to let go. Teams also haven’t typically been willing to trade their own players at this stage in the off season after spending the last 3-5 months game planning around using them this season, which is why player for player trades rarely happen in the NFL and almost never happen this close to training camps opening up. That means most offers will likely only include 2025 draft picks, and no matter how valuable a collection of picks is, they won’t be able to help this year’s 49ers team. After coming so close to winning it all last season, the 49ers can't trade one of their best players and need to be solely focused on maximizing their chances at winning Super Bowl LIX.
49ers Have Been Here Before
What makes me confident a trade won’t materialize beyond the trade packages and the necessity for the 49ers to compete this year is that San Francisco has been down this road before. Are we so quick to forget about Deebo Samuel requesting a trade and holding in during training camp in 2022? Or Nick Bosa just last season holding out for a contract up until four days before the season? Even Raheem Mostert in 2020 and Kicker Robbie Gould in 2019 asked for a trade before the season. Each one of these players thought a deal wouldn’t be able to be reached and thought that either holding out or requesting a trade was best, but no player was traded, and each ended up getting a new deal from the 49ers and playing during those seasons. This is not the NBA. Players can request trades as much as they want, but without being as singularly important to winning as stars in the NBA are, and with a franchise tag in place, players don’t hold much leverage in this league. With that in mind, we should expect the 49ers to deny Aiyuk’s trade request and find a way to either re-sign him or keep him on the fifth-year option. To me, this is just the natural progression of negotiations for 49ers players, with a hold out or hold in likely coming next.
Possible Trade Partners
Even though a trade isn’t likely, it can still be fun to see which teams’ teams could realistically trade for him. Any team that trades him would likely already have a contract extension agreed upon at the time of the trade and they would likely structure the deal as a back-loaded deal so they wouldn’t need the whole ≈$30M this year, probably just at least $15M. Without including the 49ers, only 16 teams that have at least that much effective cap space. You can immediately remove the Cardinals, Chiefs, Eagles, Lions, and Packers from this list as the Niners would not be willing to trade a star to a division rival, an NFC contender, or the team that just beat them in the Super Bowl. It’s also unlikely the Bengals, Raiders, Titans, Texans, or Vikings trade for a wide receiver after already spending so much on the position. The Chargers are also out after deciding to move on from Keenan Allen and Mike Williams due to their cap situation just a few months ago. That leaves just five teams, the Colts, Commanders, Jaguars, Patriots, and Steelers as the only teams with a real avenue to trading for Aiyuk. Luckily, each team has both their first and second round picks, because a trade would likely start with at least one first round pick. The Patriots and Commanders should probably not be willing to trade their first rounder in a season where they could be bottom five teams, but both could be creative and use a collection of picks that are equivalent to a first-round pick. Each team also definitely could use a player like Aiyuk. Both the Patriots and Jaguars were trying to sign Calvin Ridley before the Titans overpaid him, and although they each pivoted to rookie players, they still have massive holes at WR1. The Colts have a young quarterback on a rookie deal and are falling behind in an arms race with the division rival Texans. The Steelers need a receiver opposite of George Pickens after trading Diontae Johnson and replacing him with Van Jefferson, Quez Watkins, and rookie Roman Wilson. Finally, the team Aiyuk has made it obvious he'd want to join, the Commanders. He's already posted Instagram videos of him watching Commanders’ practice film and is good friends with their rookie QB Jayden Daniels, after playing with him in college. Slotting in Aiyuk next to Scary Terry and Jahan Dotson, would take this group from very good to elite. Each team would be dramatically better with Aiyuk, but realistically he won’t end up being traded and no legitimate conversation will take place until the spring where each of these teams' situations and even Aiyuk's situation will have been dramatically altered by the outcomes of this season. Trades are always fun to think about, but this one isn't going to happen anytime soon unless something dramatically changes.
Photos by USA Today
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