The drama continues.
Brandon Aiyuk watch continues, and will continue for the foreseeable future. We already saw Aiyuk’s appearance on The Nightcap where the San Francisco 49ers wide receiver made it clear he knows his worth for his extension. We have heard the San Francisco 49ers say they value Aiyuk and haven’t discussed trading him.
According to NFL Network’s Mike Garofolo, 49ers and Aiyuk are far apart on a deal being imminent.
Speaking on NFL Total Access Friday, Garafolo broke down on where everything is with all the drama. There’s definitely a mutual desire to get something done, but they aren’t exactly nearing the finish line on any of it:
“Uh, where are we? Well, we’re not close. And they have made a recent run at it, from my understanding, Mike Yam. It’s not like they haven’t had any discussions. They have had preliminary discussions. You saw John Lynch say Brandon Aiyuk could play in the fifth-year option and play out his deal—they’re comfortable with that. Then you’ve got Aiyuk doing the little finger thing saying, ‘Hey, I could walk.’
“So, basically, it’s a little bit of a standoff right now. Now look, this is not where the Deebo Samuel thing was, and as bad as that got with Samuel basically requesting a trade, they were still able to salvage that.
“So let’s not panic here. Let’s not freak out. And maybe if it gets to the point where there’s some offseason workouts and OTAs and Brandon Aiyuk does a little finger emoji saying, ‘Yeah, I’m going to be walking the other way instead of going to those voluntary workouts.’
“But he does love the 49ers, from my understanding, and he knows this is a team that is taking care of their guys when it’s their turn, and there’s no reason he feels like he shouldn’t be next. He believes he’s one of the top wide receivers in the league, so he expects to be paid in that realm and 49ers are not quite there at this point. So I think we’ve got some time before this one gets settled either way, but I know that the 49ers would like to eventually get Brandon Aiyuk under an extended contract and I know that he would love to be there under the right price. So let’s see if they can both get to the point where they agree on something.”
Well, at least he likes the 49ers. That’s good because slotting in another wide receiver into that offense, especially a rookie, would just not be the same. Kyle put it pretty well in his post Friday that Aiyuk has done everything the right way. We aren’t getting trade requests like the Deebo situation. Given everything that’s said, a deal should be done, it’s just going to take time.
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