Not long after the San Francisco 49ers and wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk agreed to a four-year contract extension, details about what happened during the negotiations started to emerge.
Among the various reports was one from the Athletic’s Dianna Russini, indicating the Denver Broncos turned down a trade offer from the 49ers that would have helped facilitate an Aiyuk trade to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Russini reported the 49ers were going to send Aiyuk to the Steelers, and then flip a third-round pick to the Broncos in exchange for wide receiver Courtland Sutton. The Broncos rejected the trade, thus ending the possibility of Aiyuk getting traded to Pittsburgh according to the report.
Broncos head coach Sean Payton was asked in a press conference about the Sutton trade talks. The 49ers weren’t the only team calling about the 28-year-old wide receiver.
“I’m going to say in the last three months, there have been multiple teams call about Courtland,” Payton said via Pro Football Talk. “He’s a good football player. It’s a little bit of a stretch relative to the specifics. I read the same thing you read, and I would say we didn’t get nearly as far down the road as what may have been reported. It’s insignificant. For me to comment on every call that comes in to [General Manager] George [Paton] or myself would be ludicrous.”
Given how much reporting went on around the Aiyuk situation it actually makes sense that the 49ers might have called and not gotten very far with the Broncos. Had they gotten deep into trade talks, there surely would have been some reporting that involved Denver during the saga and not just after.
By calling the Broncos, San Francisco was likely doing their due diligence to see if there were trade partners that would allow them to acquire another receiver in the event they had to trade Aiyuk to Pittsburgh.
The Steelers weren’t going to supply a viable replacement for Aiyuk, so the 49ers had to go looking elsewhere. Given where the Broncos are in their build and the combination of age and contract with Sutton it would’ve made sense had they wanted to unload him for a mid-round pick.
It would behoove Payton, who has to try and win football games this year, to downplay the talks even if they did reach a point of significance. Sutton figures to be the team’s No. 1 receiver with rookie quarterback Bo Nix under center. Making it clear the team was on the verge of trading him wouldn’t have been conducive to their success in 2024.
Whether the talks got far with the Broncos probably doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme. All signs pointed toward the 49ers extending Aiyuk, but if the receiver wasn’t going to agree to an extension, then San Francisco had to ensure it had moves in the hopper to be as competitive as possible this season.
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