The timeline for that transaction, however, has been murky.<\/p>\n
Asked in February when the team would make an Aiyuk-related move, Lynch said it wouldn\u2019t come before the new league year began March 11.<\/p>\n
Aiyuk\u2019s status remained unchanged by the NFL owners\u2019 meetings on March 30, when Lynch and Kyle Shanahan said the 49ers were hoping another team would trade<\/a> for the receiver.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t have a date,\u201d Shanahan said when asked when the 49ers might end up releasing Aiyuk. \u201cWe\u2019re in no rush to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n Four days before the draft, Lynch said he\u2019d had \u201csome discussions\u201d with other teams about a trade but conceded it was unlikely they\u2019d deal Aiyuk over draft weekend. He seemed to indicate that if a trade didn\u2019t happen, the team might finally release him.<\/p>\n \u201cThe draft is another opportunity because a lot of things happen on draft week,\u201d Lynch said April 20. \u201cSo I think we\u2019ll see it through here. We\u2019ll focus on our draft. If something happens there, great. If not, we\u2019ll reevaluate it.\u201d<\/p>\n As expected, Aiyuk wasn\u2019t dealt, and Saturday, Lynch was back to saying they wouldn\u2019t part ways with Aiyuk \u201canytime soon\u201d unless it was via a trade.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re available. Give us a call,\u201d he said, holding up his phone. \u201cAnd like I said earlier, I think it\u2019s the prudent thing to do. He\u2019s an extremely talented player. He\u2019s been an extremely effective player in our league. The situation didn\u2019t work itself out here. That\u2019s not to say that it can\u2019t be rekindled somewhere else. And we\u2019d be happy to do something with anyone if the opportunity presented itself.\u201d<\/p>\n Why and how the Aiyuk-49ers relationship soured so dramatically has never been clear. Aiyuk hasn\u2019t spoken to the media in more than a year;\u00a0he has long preferred to send cryptic messages on social media, such as the one he posted in December of him speeding<\/a> \u2014 100 mph in a 40 mph zone \u2014 past Levi\u2019s Stadium.<\/p>\n In league circles, there\u2019s a sense that the 49ers are in no rush to do him any favors after an anguishing contract dispute in 2024 and his abandonment of the team a year later, which led to his salary guarantees being voided.<\/p>\n The Washington Commanders appear the likeliest landing spot for Aiyuk if and when the 49ers sever ties with him. Commanders GM Adam Peters was the 49ers\u2019 vice president of player personnel when they drafted Aiyuk, and Aiyuk is especially close to quarterback Jayden Daniels, his former Arizona State teammate.<\/p>\n Multiple people with knowledge of the Commanders\u2019 thinking said the team believes Aiyuk could be a boost to the roster, but that Washington can\u2019t rely on that given the circumstances. Should Aiyuk become available, Washington would likely consider a short-term, highly incentivized contract.<\/p>\n If Aiyuk performs anything like the player in his prime, he\u2019d be a significant boost to the Commanders\u2019 receiving corps, which currently lacks a proven playmaker opposite Terry McLaurin. But if the experiment were to fall through, Washington wouldn\u2019t lose much by parting ways.<\/p>\n And the Commanders, those people said, appear steadfast in their unwillingness to give up draft assets to acquire Aiyuk.<\/p>\n \n Brandon Aiyuk (right) and Jayden Daniels played together for the Sun Devils in 2019. (Rob Schumacher \/ The Republic \/ USA Today Network via Imagn Images)<\/p>\n The Aiyuk-49ers relationship was always a bit strained.<\/p>\n A first-round pick in 2020, he got off to a fast start as a rookie, leading the team that season with 60 catches, 748 receiving yards and five touchdowns. When the 2021 season began, however, it seemed like Aiyuk was in Shanahan\u2019s doghouse. He didn\u2019t start the season opener in Detroit, was outsnapped in the game by journeyman Trent Sherfield and caught only one pass for 6 yards over the first two weeks.<\/p>\n Shanahan insisted he wasn\u2019t punishing the player. But he noted that the COVID-19 pandemic a year earlier made that offseason so disjointed that Aiyuk didn\u2019t get the hard-knocks indoctrination 49ers rookie receivers normally get.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then we had so many people get hurt, and he had to play a ton, but that\u2019s all he knew with the NFL,\u201d Shanahan said. \u201cSo his experience is, \u2018Man, I just kind of showed up, and I started all year, and people say I\u2019m going to be one of the best guys next year.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Still, Aiyuk rallied, his starting role returned, and he finished 2021 with 826 receiving yards. That total rose again, to 1,015 yards, in 2022, and the 2023 season was his best to date.<\/p>\n He finished with 1,342 yards while averaging 17.9 yards per catch. He also came up with the biggest catch of the Shanahan era in San Francisco, a diving grab of a deep pass that ricocheted off a Lions defender in the NFC Championship Game. The grab helped propel the 49ers to a second-half comeback and a trip to the Super Bowl.<\/p>\n The Super Bowl, however, didn\u2019t go well for Aiyuk or the 49ers. They lost in overtime to the Kansas City Chiefs, with Aiyuk held to three catches for 49 yards on six targets.<\/p>\n Afterward, he expressed frustration with his usage and then, on locker-room cleanout day, was moved to tears when asked about the season and his future with the 49ers. Aiyuk was heading into the fifth and final year of his contract at the time, a contract negotiation was in the offing, and he sent a message on Instagram: \u201cDon\u2019t forget what got you there.\u201d<\/p>\n That foreshadowed a long \u201chold-in\u201d during the 2024 training camp, one in which his antics on the sideline became a sideshow to the team\u2019s practices. The contract negotiations dragged on to the point he asked for a trade, but only to specific locations \u2014 the Pittsburgh Steelers because he wanted to play for Mike Tomlin and the Commanders because of his connection with Daniels.<\/p>\n The 49ers were on the verge of trading him in August 2024 but ultimately decided just before the regular season to bring him back on a four-year, $120 million contract. He\u2019d missed all of the offseason and training camp practices and got off to a slow start. Then he suffered a multi-ligament knee injury in Week 7 that wiped out the rest of the season and promised to eat into the start of the 2025 season.<\/p>\n Aiyuk seemed to be on the right track as far as his rehabilitation, with Shanahan saying in October the team was weeks away from opening the receiver\u2019s practice window. But around that time, Aiyuk stopped showing up at the facility, then stopped returning phone calls from the team, including from Shanahan.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s something I\u2019ve never seen in 22 years of coaching,\u201d Shanahan later said.<\/p>\n It was the ultimate fade pattern. On Dec. 13, the 49ers put Aiyuk on the rarely used reserve\/left squad list<\/a>.<\/p>\n How much longer can the 49ers hold Aiyuk in limbo? There\u2019s nothing in his contract that forces the issue anytime soon. He was due $1.2 million in base salary and a $24.9 million option bonus (which originally became guaranteed in April 2025) in 2026, but the 49ers voided the guarantees in July. He remains on the reserve\/left squad list \u2014 where players are not paid.<\/p>\n Practically, the 49ers\u2019 first OTAs practice on May 27 might be an unofficial marker. Aiyuk is well-versed at making a spectacle of himself even if he isn\u2019t practicing. He did that during his 2024 hold-in. And even though he wasn\u2019t ready to officially practice during his ACL rehabilitation last year, he would still hang out with the wide receivers<\/a> at the start of practice and run what might be called \u201cshadow\u201d routes while the group was going through its warmup and individual drills.<\/p>\n Maybe Aiyuk\u2019s most effective move is something he failed to do last season \u2014 show up for work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Francisco 49ers\u2019 offseason program has begun, and they\u2019re less than a month away from their first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,560,99,3851],"class_list":["post-613805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-san-francisco-49ers","tag-sports","tag-washington-commanders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Brandon](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/USATSI_24315283-scaled.jpg\")
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