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Why the 49ers Still Might Trade Brandon Aiyuk this Offseason

It's highly unlikely that Aiyuk will be on the team in 2026. So why not trade him now if there's a team interested in him?
Grant Cohn|
Sep 9, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk (11) is introduced to the crowd before the game against the New York Jets at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images
Sep 9, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk (11) is introduced to the crowd before the game against the New York Jets at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images | Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

Brandon Aiyuk's trade value just went up for a couple reasons.

One, his recovery from knee surgery seems to be going well. Two, the 49ers just paid him a $23 million option bonus. So any team that wants to trade for him wouldn't have to pay him that money. Which means he's significantly cheaper than he was three weeks ago.

But why would the 49ers trade him after paying him all that money?

It's possible the relationship between the team and Aiyuk is broken after a bitter contract negotiation last year. In addition, it's possible the 49ers simply don't think Aiyuk will be worth the contract they gave him last year.

I think it's highly unlikely that Aiyuk will be on the team in 2026. So why not trade him now if there's a team interested in him?

The 49ers might prefer to trade Aiyuk next offseason after he plays a few games and shows the league what kind of recovery he made. If he plays well, they could get a lot for him.

But if he doesn't play well, if he rushes back onto the field with no offseason and looks like a shell of himself, then his value will plummet and the 49ers will get nothing for him. They'll be stuck with his contract.

That's why the smart play could be to trade Aiyuk now while he still has an air of mystery about him. Perhaps they could get a third- or fourth-round pick in the next week's draft.

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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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