I haven’t seen much talk about Brandon Aiyuk, and his situation really is unusual.
Diva wide receivers have a long history of blowing up at their own teams, but what’s happening here is different. I honestly can’t think of another star player who was still under contract, refused to show up to the facility at all, and ended up having his guarantees voided because of it.
The closest comparison I can come up with is Deshaun Watson’s standoff with Houston — but even he showed up, “held in,” and worked with the team to get a trade lined up. Aiyuk isn’t even doing that. He doesn’t want to be traded, he wants the team to drop him.
As a 49ers fan, I’m probably too close to the situation, so I’m curious how it looks from the outside.
Le’Veon Bell held out an entire season. Now, he was on a franchise tag, but he turned down $14.5 million to try to get a better deal (which did happen with the Jets, but he sacrificed his career in the process).
For the strategy to work, a player has to be willing to give up one year of a franchise tag salary. That’s a steep price.
Bell appears to be on the verge of that, turning down this season’s $14.5 million and putting the Steelers in a position where they’ll have to consider the cost of tagging him again in 2019 and paying him more than $25 million next year. As it stands now, Pittsburgh does not appear inclined to do that, so Bell will likely hit free agency in 2019, just as he desired.
He sat out all year but later regretted it.
That still might be different though. The Steelers wanted to put him on a second straight franchise tag and he refused to do that. That might be different from accepting a contract but then not showing up.
The Aiyuk situation seems like a talented football player with some mental health issues attempting to hold a team hostage for no good reason. And now it appears he’s willing to tank his own career in spectacular fashion because his prior bad decisions have consequences, and because he’s not getting his way.
It’s an ugly situation, and I hope he gets some help.
I didn’t realize (or had forgotten) that Aiyuk hasn’t played in nearly two years, since suffering a bad knee injury early in the '24 season. I don’t know if it’s mental health, just anger at Niners management, or what, but it sounds like there’s been bad blood for a while now.
SF had just given him an extension; when he went on IL, he didn’t follow their medical advice, and most importantly, refused to show up at facilities, which was/is a requirement, hence the team voiding his contract
so now paranoia! He should know by now that the SF fans would pack his bags and personally escort him out of town, not harass him like he claims. Of course, with Wiliams in business with Lynch, I can see collision idea
Aiyuk is definitely trying his damndest to piss off the Niners so they’ll cut him. That’s his entire plan now because he’s made himself all but untradeable in the NFL.
So the Niners will have to decide if it is worth it to get rid of him or maybe get a middling draft pick from the Commanders. Or (and this is the one I’m rooting for) if they say “Fuck It” and keep him on the roster just to fuck him over.
While Aiyuk is on the “reserve/ left squad” list°, he doesn’t count as on the 90 man roster, and the 49ers don’t have to pay him a penny. Even when his $20+ million roster bonus comes due, because he’s not in the roster. In fact, not cutting him allows them to reduce or spread out the salary cap impact of the money they couldn’t void.
He can virtually guarantee getting cut by filing for reinstatement and showing up at the team facility. I doubt he’d pass a physical, but they might cut him before that. But in any case he has a very simple and straightforward path to getting cut and he has so far refused. Being weird in social media videos ain’t gonna do it.
Brandon has not been answering or returning calls from the 49ers. If John Lynch actually did go to his house (no evidence), it was an attempt at communication. And possibly an informal wellness check, because Aiyuk seems to be in the middle of a downward mental health spiral. (For me it went from annoying, to briefly funny, too truly concerning.)
I think he needs legitimate psychological care. Besides acting crazy to annoy the team into releasing him, he has also taunted law enforcement over his whereabouts regarding his outstanding arrest warrant. I’m done with him as a player, but I don’t want this to end in tragedy.