5 burning questions the 49ers are left with after minicamp
By John Porter
No NFL team has everything fiigured out in June, chiefly because the pads still have to come on in earnest in a month.
Some might not even know the answers until the start of the season and live football happens. Some teams, on the other hand, never figure it out.
But every team has questions.
Despite continued excellence at the top of the league, the San Francisco 49ers are no different. While minicamp will have eased some concerns and worries about some of the newcomers and changes to the roster, some burning questions will keep the Niners brass up at night until training camp at the very earliest.
Let's take a look at them.
What should be done about Brandon Aiyuk?
Any 49ers fan would struggle to escape this one, even though it is getting tiresome. There only really seems to be one answer to this if the 49ers want him on the roster next season, and that's handing him a new contract.
But what might that look like?
Recent deals for other star wide receivers Jaylen Waddle and Justin Jefferson, among others, have completely reset the market, possibly to an unattainable degree given the 49ers upcoming cap considerations. With deals for quarterback Brock Purdy along with upcoming free agents like cornerbacks Charvarius Ward and Deommodore Lenoir potentially on the table, it is genuinely becoming harder to see wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk landing the deal he's looking for from the team.
Negotiations also seem to have stalled, with recent suggestions from 49ers reporter Mike Silver that the team's last offer to Aiyuk was in the $26 million per-year range, which is unlikely to bridge the chasm between player and team, considering it's lower than the current market trend would suggest. It becomes more difficult to find the right number, given that Aiyuk is a top-10 receiver in the league by almost any conceivable metric, measurable or otherwise.
This question will likely dog the 49ers until at least training camp, absent an extension. Once camp starts, with or without him, the next round of speculation, including yet more potential trade talk, will likely begin.