Brandon Aiyuk has no trade value, even if he's still good
· Yahoo Sports
Brandon Aiyuk is fewer than three years removed from being a 1,300-yard receiver for the NFC champions. He's only 28 years old.
And he has no trade value whatsoever.
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Aiyuk continues to escalate his feud with the San Francisco 49ers on social media, deepening the rift between a player who once looked like the future of the franchise and a team that has no plans to ever play him again. The Niners took the extraordinary step of voiding almost $25 million in guaranteed money on the four year, $120 million contract the former first round pick signed last fall. Aiyuk reportedly missed rehabilitation sessions while working back from a torn ACL and MCL and limited contact with team officials.
At this point, it was clear his team in the Bay Area was over. That was seven months ago. He's still on the roster today.
San Francisco would have loved to get something back in return for a WR1 in his theoretical prime. Instead, Aiyuk has no suitors in a wideout-needy league. His contract has no guaranteed money left but still has cap hits of $6.3 million for 2026 (for an acquiring team) and then a whopping $40.4 million in 2027. He hasn't worked with the 49ers to make that a more tradeable number, which means any team interested in acquiring him is paying a modest price for this fall and then almost certainly releasing him or reworking that number afterward. That's a risky gamble on a player who:
a) has missed his last 27 games
b) saw his production decline sharply after signing his big money extension in 2024 (from 84 yards per game and a 71 percent catch rate to 53 and, coincidentally, 53)
c) is in the midst of a very public feud with his team over contract and behind-the-scenes issues, and
d) has made his desire to go to the Washington Commanders a large part of that very public feud.
Let's focus on that last part. Aiyuk has made no secret of his desire to play for the Washington Commanders. He'd link back up with the college quarterback, Jayden Daniels, who made him a first round prospect in his final season at Arizona State. Would any other team, seeing a player rage against a franchise he doesn't want to play for, throw any kind of viable assets at that player to be the *next* team for which he doesn't want to play?
Maybe there's a world in which some team talks with Aiyuk's agent, works out a contract restructure and offers a swap of seventh round picks for a clearly talented player coming off the worst two-year stretch of his career. But the one team that makes the most sense -- the Commanders -- knows it can just wait until San Francisco finally excises him from the roster, then ink him to a one-year prove-it deal to play alongside Terry McLaurin and see if there's any magic (and a healthy body) underneath the bluster of this feud.
There's really only one resolution to the Aiyuk-49ers saga. San Francisco will release the former star who no longer wants to play for the team. It doesn't have to hurry. The continued barbs on social media have turned this into a war of optics. Waiting until training camp would ensure the wideout has a rough transition with a possible NFC playoff opponent.
That's the only card general manager John Lynch has left to play. With the rift between the two sides unrepairable, it seems he's destined to play it.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: Brandon Aiyuk has no trade value, even if he's still good