SANTA CLARA, Calif. — What a failure this would be. What a massive misreading and misplaying of the entire negotiation with Brandon Aiyuk, from his cryptic comments last spring all the way to the stark clarity of this situation right now.
The 49ers’ leaders, from Jed York to Paraag Marathe to John Lynch to Kyle Shanahan, missed something here. They underestimated the wide receiver market and Aiyuk’s commitment to getting what he feels he deserves. They fumbled away the moment when it seemed like this deal was very close in May. They miscalculated the economics.
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The 49ers are the ones responsible for putting together this roster and managing the finances, not Aiyuk, and they messed this up. Which could merely cost them their best shot at throwing a parade in February.
If the 49ers trade Aiyuk — as seems close to imminent — because they couldn’t go up to $28 million a year or $30 million or whatever, what a devastating step backward for a team that supposedly is all-in for a Super Bowl title. What an admission: Well, gee, I guess the 49ers are almost all-in?
Of course, it’s still possible that Aiyuk’s hard-ball tactics (ask for a trade, report to camp but decline to practice, set a price too high for the 49ers to meet) are all meant to squeeze the most out of the 49ers at this exact moment. That he’ll eventually sign a long-term deal if the team budges a little more. And it’s still possible that the 49ers’ hard-ball tactics (agreeing to trade terms with Cleveland and New England, according to NBC Sports Bay Area’s Matt Maiocco, if Aiyuk can come to contract terms with those teams) are designed to shove Aiyuk back to the negotiating table once and for all. Maybe hardball plus hardball is the only way this could’ve worked.
But it sure doesn’t feel like that’s the way this is headed. It doesn’t even seem like the 49ers’ principals feel that way. They understand the reality. This star negotiation has gone off the rails in a way they haven’t experienced in this era.
Shanahan on if there's any way the 49ers are better if they trade Aiyuk: "Brandon's a great player, so it's real hard to be better when you lose a great player. So you've gotta look at anything, you've gotta understand the situation we're in, what that looks like."
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Shanahan wasn’t quite talking about Aiyuk’s 49ers career in the past tense Tuesday, but it was something close to that.
“It’s been at this point for a little bit,” Shanahan said, when asked if this needs to be resolved soon. “So it’s nothing really new to me. You’re always disappointed when you can’t keep hold of all your players or it’s not going exactly right. I don’t like losing anybody. So that’s why I’m hoping it does work out here. But right now, we don’t have that solved yet.”
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Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that Aiyuk has been a grueling negotiating partner, that the 49ers have made multiple offers, raising the value each time, and that Aiyuk’s camp hasn’t lowered the asking price and has only raised the number as other receivers have reset the market multiple times. That doesn’t seem far-fetched.
Big-time negotiations often take perilous turns. The 49ers’ negotiations with Nick Bosa last year, which stretched into the week before the regular-season opener, were full of problems. But the 49ers gave in and did what it took to get Bosa signed to the richest contract for a non-quarterback at that time, so they did not lose him. And why wouldn’t Aiyuk try to test the 49ers like Bosa did, since he just watched how well it worked?
Aiyuk isn’t at the same level of value as Bosa, but the 49ers will be worse if they trade him now, because you never get equal value back for a star when you trade him in August. That’s panic time. Teams have put together their rosters. The draft isn’t for another eight months. There is no way the 49ers will get true market value from the Patriots, Browns or the Steelers (presumably Aiyuk’s favored destination, now part of the trade talks, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter).
As Bosa said Tuesday, when asked what the 49ers would lose if Aiyuk is traded: “I trust John and Kyle, but he’s a very tough player to replace.”
The time for the 49ers to have made this kind of decision would’ve been in April, when they admitted they were taking calls from other teams on Aiyuk and Deebo Samuel but didn’t like what they were offered. They would’ve gotten more for Aiyuk back then (a top-30 draft pick they could’ve immediately turned into a player who they would have had right now in camp) than they will now. And they wouldn’t have gone through all these months of uncertainty, disconnect and strain.
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If Aiyuk was not signable by the 49ers, they should’ve realized that in April. That’s the timeframe in which they traded DeForest Buckner in 2020, by the way. Instead, the 49ers concluded they could negotiate this out. Aiyuk showing up for camp as a “hold-in” probably affected the 49ers’ thinking. But he apparently hasn’t budged. The 49ers will only go so high. And both sides are at the brink.
If the Patriots, Steelers and Browns are theoretically ready to meet Aiyuk’s price, why is it too high for the 49ers? If the 49ers could’ve signed Aiyuk by just going a little higher in May, why didn’t they realize what they’d be risking if they didn’t move up one last time? If Aiyuk is a disposable asset for the 49ers, can you picture what this offense is going to look like on third down when Brock Purdy is scrambling around and it’s Ricky Pearsall, Jauan Jennings or Chris Conley trying to break free from press coverage, not Aiyuk? And can you picture what happens if the 49ers try to replace Aiyuk with a high draft pick in the future, maybe Dante Pettis 2.0? Or the next Danny Gray?
The 49ers’ offense will still be formidable without Aiyuk, presuming the top guys stay healthy and the 49ers eventually come to contract terms with holdout superstar left tackle Trent Williams. But it won’t be as good as it could be. Probably not as good as it has to be to win a championship.
“I mean, Brandon’s a great player, so it’s real hard to be better when you lose a great player,” Shanahan said of the trade talk. “So you’ve gotta look at anything, you’ve gotta understand the situation we’re in, what that looks like. And that does take time. Hopefully it’ll work out best for him and best for us in the long run.”
Think of it in the context of the 49ers’ top NFC rivals. What did the Lions do all offseason? Give extensions to all of their top guys. No panic trades. The Eagles have been tossing out rich contracts to their stars for the last several years. Green Bay just gave a massive new deal to Jordan Love. The Rams just re-did Matt Stafford’s deal.
Good teams accumulate a lot of talent; the great ones keep that talent around as long as possible. And the 49ers are getting ready to — or bluffing that they will — trade Aiyuk, who has great chemistry with Purdy and does every large and little thing Shanahan wants a WR to do. This feels reckless. Short-sighted.
And let me poke a hole in the general argument that the 49ers have to be disciplined with their salary-cap situation because of the looming $200 million-plus deal coming for Purdy next offseason. Yes, that will be a massive contract that will affect the 49ers and York’s pocketbook for years. Yes, that eventually will have a major impact on the 49ers’ salary cap. But any future Purdy deal won’t really unbalance the 49ers’ cap until 2026 at the earliest because these large contracts are always structured to drastically limit the hits in the first few years.
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For instance, Trevor Lawrence just signed a five-year, $275 million contract ($55 million a year) with Jacksonville, but his cap number this year is a relatively moderate $15 million, and $17 million in 2025. The deal Jalen Hurts signed in April 2023 is an even closer parallel to the Purdy situation, because both Hurts and Purdy weren’t first-round picks with first-round-pick salary structures. Hurts signed a five-year, $255 million contract ($51 million a year) with the Eagles in April 2023. His cap number that season was just $6.1 million, and it’s $13.6 million this season.
So Purdy’s new deal almost certainly won’t push his cap hit past $20 million until 2027. The 49ers have room and time to maneuver around that figure. They also have $31.5 million in available cap space, according to OverTheCap.com, and the NFL salary cap goes up by 10 to 14 percent every year.
If the 49ers trade Aiyuk, it will mostly be about the team trying to beat another star in a negotiation and it blowing up on them. Hey, all owners have a limit to what they want to pay. The Yorks have committed a lot of money to this very talented roster and it’s their right to decide where the boundaries are. But if it costs them a 26-year-old All-Pro receiver who has great chemistry with Purdy, what are the 49ers really gaining by this? And if they lose him, do the 49ers realize how much it’ll cost to try to replace him — and what they might lose out on while they try?
(Photo: Steph Chambers / Getty Images)
Tim Kawakami is Editor-in-Chief of The Athletic's Bay Area coverage. Previously, he was a columnist with the Mercury News for 17 years, and before that he covered various beats for the Los Angeles Times and the Philadelphia Daily News. Follow Tim on Twitter @timkawakami
