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Is 49ers WR Brandon Aiyuk the NFL's Most Overpaid Wide Receiver?

The 49ers seemed so relieved when they finally signed Brandon Aiyuk to a four-year contract extension last year, Now, they probably wish he hadn't signed it.
Grant Cohn|
Oct 10, 2024; Seattle, Washington, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk (11) catches the ball during warmups before the game against the Seattle Seahawks at Lumen Field. Mandatory Credit: Steven Bisig-Imagn Images
Oct 10, 2024; Seattle, Washington, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk (11) catches the ball during warmups before the game against the Seattle Seahawks at Lumen Field. Mandatory Credit: Steven Bisig-Imagn Images | Steven Bisig-Imagn Images

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San Francisco 49ers

The 49ers seemed so relieved when they finally signed Brandon Aiyuk to a four-year contract extension last year, Now, they probably wish he hadn't signed it.

Because as soon as he got paid, he seemed to lose his drive to be the best. Suddenly, he was consumed with buying expensive cars. And his performance took a major hit last season. He caught just 25 passes and scored zero touchdowns in seven games. And then he tore his ACL, MCL and meniscus.

Now, he's a 27-year-old wide receiver with a surgically-repaired knee who gets paid an average of $30 million per season -- tied for seventh most among wide receivers with future Hall of Famer Tyreek Hill. In no world should those two get paid the same amount of money on average. And yet, they do.

Let's compare them.

Hill is one of the most explosive wide receivers of all time. He has six 1,000-yard seasons, he has been a first-team All-Pro five times and he has finished top four in the Offensive Player of the Year voting twice.

Now let's do Aiyuk. He has two 1,000-yard seasons, he has been a second-team All Pro once and that's it. He had one semi-elite season in 2023. Otherwise, he has been inconsistent.

To be fair to Aiyuk, Bleacher Report recently named the most overpaid wide receiver in the NFL, and it wasn't him -- it was Christian Kirk. But he gets paid $18 million per season on average. Aiyuk gets paid almost double that.

Aiyuk's contract cost the 49ers Dre Greenlaw, Talanoa Hufanga and Jordan Mason this offseason, not to mention the free agents they might have signed but did not.

It's definitely the worst wide-receiver contract in the league.

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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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