Will the 49ers Trade Brandon Aiyuk at the Trade Deadline?

If the 49ers wait until next year to trade him and he plays this year and shows that he's not the wide receiver he was before his knee injury, he will be untradeable.

Oct 20, 2024; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk (11) walks on the field before the start of the game against the Kansas City Chiefs at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Cary Edmondson-Imagn Images | Cary Edmondson-Imagn Images

One way or another, Brandon Aiyuk probably won't be on the 49ers in 2026. So the 49ers could trade him next offseason, or they could trade him this year at the trade deadline.

Conventional wisdom says the 49ers won't trade him this year because they just paid him a $23 million option bonus on April 1. The thought process is that the 49ers wouldn't want to give him all that cash just to send him to another team. And there's validity to that line of thinking.

But the relationship between the 49ers and Aiyuk seemed frayed before he tore his ACL, MCL and meniscus. He didn't seem like he could love up to the $30-million-per-season extension they gave him. And then he suffered a serious injury.

To argue that the 49ers should hold onto Aiyuk simply because they've paid him so much cash already is a sunk-cost fallacy. Just because they've wasted money on him in the past doesn't mean they should continue to do so.

If the 49ers have decided that Aiyuk is not a foundational piece of the 49ers' future -- and he's not -- then they should trade him to the first team that makes an offer for him and is willing to take on his horrendous contract.

If the 49ers wait until next year to trade him and he plays this year and shows that he's not the wide receiver he was before his knee injury, he will be untradeable.

That's why the 49ers should trade him while there's still some mystery about how he ultimately will recover.