Time is ticking for a deal to get done ahead of Week 1 for Brandon Aiyuk and the 49ers
When San Francisco 49ers general manager John Lynch was asked whether wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk would be fined if he chooses not to practice, Lynch said, “We’ll deal with that.” It’s a situation that’s undoubtedly driving him crazy, as it would with any sane person:
“Yeah. Fortunately there’s 90 players here, there’s pre-season games, there’s the work of getting better and that goes into putting a team together. But no question about it. When you’ve got some of your better players, two of them in particular that aren’t out there, and that’s your job, you take a lot of pride in that. I think, one thing, we’ve got a lot of really good players and we’ve rewarded a lot of good players and that makes things tougher at times. I remain optimistic. We’ll find a way to put the best squad out there and I’m really happy with where this team is at and what we do have to offer. The players out here that have been here are working really hard. We’ve got a lot of love for the two guys that aren’t and we’ll continue to work on that to try to bring that to a resolution.”
According to the 49ers beat reporters on hand for practice, Aiyuk was not present for Thursday’s session.
If you’re looking at this from Lynch’s perspective, he’s probably wondering what else he needs to do to appease Aiyuk. A few other teams were interested in Aiyuk’s services, and they were reportedly more than willing to pay Aiyuk the dollar figure he wanted.
On the outside looking in, we don’t know whether Pittsburgh, Washington, Cleveland, or New England are destinations Aiyuk truly desired. Sure, he has a good buddy and an old teammate in Jayden Daniels on the Commanders, but most of those teams are going through rebuilds, while the 49ers are projected to win the most games in the NFL.
Is the standoff due to guaranteed money in the final year of Aiyuk’s contract? Does he want more money upfront? It could be a dozen different questions that we don’t have the answers to. All we know is that Aiyuk did not show up to practice, and the team was expecting him to.
There isn’t exactly any new information, either. When a player holds in, the expectation is that they practice after being medically cleared, which Aiyuk was. But it’s not fair or safe to assume that Aiyuk is fully to blame here, either. We genuinely have no idea what is going on during these negotiations.