• There’s a lot of noise out there (most of it uninformed) about the San Francisco 49ers’ position on receiver Brandon Aiyuk, and the possibility that things are devolving to the point where the second-team All-Pro could be traded.
I wouldn’t listen to that. Not, yet, at least.
Last week, my buddy Mike Silver reported that the Niners are offering around $26 million per year, which, understandably, isn’t quite good enough, but does reflect how badly San Francisco wants to lock him in as the team’s long-term No. 1 receiver. It’s short of where Jaylen Waddle and Amon-Ra St. Brown are (around $28 million APY) and, of course, a far cry from Justin Jefferson territory.
But it’s close enough to the first two guys to think there’s a deal to be done. One key, from a metrics standpoint, is that both Waddle and St. Brown had around $60 million in new money within the first two new years—which means they added that amount of money to what existed for giving the team that term on the contract. In the case of Aiyuk, with $14.124 million locked in for this year, that’d mean $75 million over the first three years of a new contract, folding that fifth-year option in.
The question from there would be what sort of tax Aiyuk is looking to land for waiting on Jefferson’s deal to get done. And that can get tricky—especially if he sees himself, after two Pro Bowl–level seasons and 75/1,342/7 last year, as being in that category. Waddle’s composite over the past two years is close to Aiyuk’s, for what it’s worth, and neither are in Jefferson’s statistical neighborhood.
Of course, if he wants what Jefferson got ($35 million APY, $110 million guaranteed), we’re talking about something else entirely.
