It seems pretty clear the San Francisco 49ers are going to have to release wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk in the next couple of months, which will finally bring an end to this drawn out saga.
Before that day though, Aiyuk will make headlines whenever he does something dumb like speed past Levi’s Stadium in his car, or his latest stunt which was to post a picture of himself with a bunch of money on his Instagram.
Aiyuk has had plenty of strange social media behavior over the years, but one would have hoped he’d just cut it out at some point. Maybe he feels he needs the attention or wants to be a troll, but this tuff just isn’t helping him or anybody else.
It’s also ironic because one could easily argue that Aiyuk threw millions upon millions of dollars away with his behavior in the last year. The fact that he didn’t cooperate with the Niners in his rehab after a major knee injury in 2024 is what led to the voiding of guarantees on his contract.
All of it has just been such a strange, sad end to his 49ers tenure when it began with such promise. He seemed like the perfect receiver for Kyle Shanahan’s offense since he blocked well, was a great route runner, and could be schemed to be wide open all the time, which is why he was such a great weapon.
The Niners wanted him around for a long time, but his behavior throughout negotiations was so erratic and upsetting that San Francisco got to a place where it clearly wanted to trade him away but Aiyuk nixed a deal.
Now the guy is going to be released in a few months and will be lucky if a team out there is willing to take a chance on him, given the severe character issues at play and the fact no one really knows how he is going to look on the field since he hasn’t played in so long.
The 49ers will surely still try to trade him so they can at least get something in return, but that seems like a massive long shot at this point. No team should part with draft capital to take a chance on him. It’s just not worth the risk.
The Niners probably can’t wait to put all of the Aiyuk drama behind them. Shanahan hates this sort of never-ending melodrama, so he and general manager John Lynch will be relieved if they never have to answer another question about Aiyuk ever again.
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