49ers WR Brandon Aiyuk's Career Takes Another Bizarre Turn

This is unreal.

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk's spree of bad news continues after a warrant was issued for his arrest from a Dec. 20 YouTube post of him speeding past Levi's Stadium.

Before the antics, Aiyuk was an ascending wide receiver, seeing his touchdowns and receiving stats improve year by year during his first four years in the NFL.

There were hiccups in this stretch in 2021. Early in Aiyuk's second season, 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan put him in the ‘dog house,’ limiting his game reps for a lack of effort in practice.

Despite facing adversity, Aiyuk was able to respond with a productive second half of the season.

This was the first time in front of 49ers fans and media that Aiyuk showed how he responds to adversity.

Aiyuk’s next time in controversial conversations was in Super Bowl 58 when 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy missed a wide-open Aiyuk with the game on the line.

This was the last instance before things spiraled out of control, and a grueling contract extension negotiation with the 49ers began.

For the 49ers, negotiations stalled early in the offseason, while wide receivers across the league continued to sign extensions. Aiyuk's asking price began to rise.

During months of negotiations, the team couldn’t reach a compromise, and in July of 2024, Aiyuk requested a trade.

All offseason, Aiyuk released cryptic social media posts. The most viral one was in June of 2024, when Aiyuk called Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels and said, "They [49ers] said they don't want me back ... I swear," and posted it on TikTok.

Aiyuk would go on to unfollow the 49ers and clear everything related to them from his social media, and liked posts when fans speculated him to get traded to other teams.

When 49ers training camp began at the end of July 2024, Aiyuk would have a hold-in, attending team meetings but not practicing.

At the end of training camp, the 49ers were moments away from reaching a deal with the Pittsburgh Steelers to trade Aiyuk away, but Shanahan ran upstairs, stopping the deal from happening after Aiyuk expressed his interest in staying with the team to Shanahan.

On August 30, 2024, the 49ers reached a four-year, $120 million deal with Aiyuk, and many thought this was the end of the antics. Those people were wrong. In Week 4 of the 2024 season, Aiyuk was caught at practice having a conversation with Shanahan because he wore the wrong shorts.

This debacle wasn’t about the shorts. It showed he was still willing to cause unnecessary distractions to the team.

In Week 7, after a stretch of games where he didn’t play up to expectations, Aiyuk tore his ACL and MCL, ending his season.

During the 2025 offseason, things seemed to be normal. Aiyuk posted videos of himself rehabbing. He showed up at 49ers training camp running routes, and the only question seemed to be his return date.

The team placed him on the physically unable to perform list, meaning he would miss the first four weeks of the season. Fans expected him to be back after that, but week after week, there was no sign of Aiyuk.

In Week 12 of the 2025 season, after receiving an overwhelming amount of speculation about Aiyuk, Shanahan announced to the media that the 49ers voided Aiyuk's contract guarantees in July because he wasn’t meeting the expectations of the contract.

There hasn’t been any confirmation on what he did, but it has been speculated that he missed meetings and wasn’t taking his rehab seriously.

Since then, things haven’t changed. The 49ers refuse to trade Aiyuk because they know his talent and don’t want to lose him for nothing, and Aiyuk continues with his social media antics.

As seen today, Aiyuk posted a video of himself driving on a racetrack after getting caught speeding.

The 49ers will keep voiding Aiyuk's guarantees because his contract makes him difficult to trade unless he reports to training camp and pushes for his release.