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The 49ers Pick Up Brandon Aiyuk's 5th Year Option

I'm guessing the 49ers didn't want to pick up Aiyuk's option until the first round of the draft was over.
Grant Cohn|
The 49ers Pick Up Brandon Aiyuk's 5th Year Option
The 49ers Pick Up Brandon Aiyuk's 5th Year Option

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San Francisco 49ers

They finally made it official.

The 49ers have picked up Brandon Aiyuk's fifth-year option for 2024, according to The NFL Network. This move seemed like it would be a mere formality all offseason, considering Aiyuk produced his first 1,000-yard receiving season last year and just turned 25.

But at John Lynch's pre-draft press conference when asked if he was planning to pick up Aiyuk's option, Lynch said he wanted to wait until after the draft to make that announcement, which was strange, because the 49ers picked up the fifth-year options of Nick Bosa and Mike McGlinchey before the draft. Waiting until after the draft for Aiyuk seemed strange and unprecedented.

And then the 49ers made it official today, after Day 1 but before Day 2. So they didn't wait until the draft was finished after all.

Why?

I'm guessing the 49ers didn't want to pick up Aiyuk's option until the first round of the draft was over. Because even though they didn't intend to trade him, there still was a remote chance a team would call them and make an offer they couldn't refuse. That offer clearly never materialized, and so the 49ers picked up Aiyuk's option.

But that doesn't mean the 49ers will extend Aiyuk's contract long term. That's a decision they'll have to make next year, and they're already paying big big money for Deebo Samuel. They might feel they shouldn't pay big money to two wide receivers. 

The 49ers will cross that bridge when they get to it. For now, Aiyuk is here to stay.

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Grant Cohn
GRANT COHN

Grant Cohn has covered the San Francisco 49ers daily since 2011. He spent the first nine years of his career with the Santa Rosa Press Democrat where he wrote the Inside the 49ers blog and covered famous coaches and athletes such as Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick and Patrick Willis. In 2012, Inside the 49ers won Sports Blog of the Year from the Peninsula Press Club. In 2020, Cohn joined FanNation and began writing All49ers. In addition, he created a YouTube channel which has become the go-to place on YouTube to consume 49ers content. Cohn's channel typically generates roughly 3.5 million viewers per month, while the 49ers' official YouTube channel generates roughly 1.5 million viewers per month. Cohn live streams almost every day and posts videos hourly during the football season. Cohn is committed to asking the questions that 49ers fans want answered, and providing the most honest and interactive coverage in the country. His loyalty is to the reader and the viewer, not the team or any player or coach. Cohn is a new-age multimedia journalist with an old-school mentality, because his father is Lowell Cohn, the legendary sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1979 to 1993. The two have a live podcast every Tuesday. Grant Cohn grew up in Oakland and studied English Literature at UCLA from 2006 to 2010. He currently lives in Oakland with his wife.

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