{"id":617273,"date":"2026-05-01T13:13:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T13:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/617273\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T13:13:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T13:13:12","slug":"does-brandon-aiyuk-actually-want-a-job-in-the-nfl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/617273\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Brandon Aiyuk actually want a job in the NFL?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If Brandon Aiyuk really wants to continue his career as professional wide receiver in the NFL, with or without the 49ers<\/a>, he hasn\u2019t done a good job showing it.<\/p>\n

Just three days after San Francisco general manager John Lynch suggested other teams around the league \u201cgive us a call<\/a>\u201d to inquire about trading for Aiyuk, interested teams have found they\u2019re having just as hard a time getting in touch with the receiver as the Niners did this past season<\/a>, ESPN\u2019s Adam Schefter reported on Monday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a situation where he hasn\u2019t been in clear, constant communication with the Niners,\u201d Schefter said on the \u201cPat McAfee Show\u201d on Monday. \u201cThey\u2019ve had a hard time getting ahold of him. Other teams have, I think, attempted to reach out; they\u2019ve had a hard time getting ahold of him.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a new experience for a team like the Commanders, the team that is reportedly most interested in acquiring the 28-year-old receiver, but it\u2019s nothing new for San Francisco. As Matt Barrows and Nicki Jhabvala of the Athletic noted in an article published Wednesday<\/a>, Aiyuk stopped answering calls from the team around October, when Shanahan said the receiver was \u201cweeks away\u201d from a return.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s for that exact reason that Washington does not want to heed Lynch\u2019s advice in calling SF for a trade, setting up what NFL Network insider Ian Rapoport framed as a<\/a> \u201cstandoff\u201d on ESPN on Wednesday. (The Athletic also noted that in their story.) The volatility that Aiyuk has shown in the past year or so does not exactly inspire the confidence required to match any sort of asking price the Niners might set for him, let alone taking on his contract as it currently is. It would also stand to reason that any other team that suddenly develops a modicum of interest in Aiyuk would feel the same way.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t leave the Niners with many options other than the pettiest<\/a>: holding onto Aiyuk until right before they have to pay him before the start of the season, only releasing him at that point. One thing that could change this outcome is if the receiver shows any indication that he\u2019s willing to change for his new team and work toward the second-team All-Pro level he showcased in 2023. For now, however, he hasn\u2019t shown any desire to do that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If Brandon Aiyuk really wants to continue his career as professional wide receiver in the NFL, with or…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,13472,99],"class_list":["post-617273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sfgsports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617273","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=617273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}