It’s been a rough offseason for Brandon Aiyuk and the San Francisco 49ers. After a standout 2023 campaign, Aiyuk entered the offseason looking for a new deal with the Niners. Unfortunately, no progress has been made toward a new contract, and that led to Aiyuk officially requesting a trade on Tuesday afternoon.
While Aiyuk’s name has been circulating in trade rumors all offseason, San Francisco hasn’t shown any desire to trade him, leaving things at a stalemate. The way the 49ers have handled the situation has drawn plenty of criticism from fans, and former linebacker Emmaunel Acho took a second to explain the biggest mistake the team has made throughout this entire saga.
The 49ers need to clear things up with Brandon Aiyuk
The way the 49ers have handled Aiyuk’s contract situation has certainly been odd. He only has one year left on his contract, and while his salary has increased from $2.3 million to $14.1 million, it makes sense that he would want his long-term future sorted out. And realistically, San Francisco’s front office should want to get a deal done to prevent Aiyuk from hitting the player market next offseason.
Acho believes the team’s decision to distance itself from Aiyuk and treat him coldly throughout the offseason was a bad one. Aiyuk has been pretty open about the whole situation on social media, and yet management hasn’t budged at all. It’s not hard to see why the talented wide receiver is frustrated, and it’s a little surprising that it took him this long to request a trade.
Aiyuk has been gradually improving each season in his career so far, and he just had easily the best season of his career in 2023 (75 REC, 1342 YDS, 7 TD). He earned a Second Team All-Pro nomination as a result of his strong play, and it’s clear that one way or another, he’s in for a big pay raise at some point in the near future.
Whether that will come from the 49ers or not, however, remains to be seen. Teams have continually been in contact with Aiyuk, and after his trade request, you can bet that interested teams will once again send another offer to San Francisco. At some point, management will have to decide whether they want to extend his contract or trade him.
Even if they do get to the negotiating table, though, Acho notes that there has been serious damage done to their relationship as a result of the way the team handled these negotiations. The Aiyuk situation is certainly one to keep an eye on and it will be interesting to see if it ends up being resolved before the start of the upcoming 2024 campaign.
