The 49ers figure to have four options when it comes to dealing with Brandon Aiyuk’s contract. Each has a fair case as the standout receiver plays the last year of his rookie contract on a club option and prepares for potential free agency in 2025.
The San Francisco 49ers are heading toward a pain point.
For two seasons, they’ve enjoyed an unusual embarrassment of riches because they’ve gotten elite quarterback production for pennies on the dollar.
Whatever your view of quarterback Brock Purdy, getting two deep NFC playoff runs (including a Super Bowl appearance against the Kansas City Chiefs) out of a player whose salary-cap hit had yet to reach $1 million was an astonishing coup for the Niners. And it will remain as much for the next two seasons before Purdy gets perhaps the biggest raise in league history.
Every move the Niners make for the next two years will revolve around that reality. It would have been easier if Purdy had been the only ticking contract bomb confronting general manager John Lynch, but he isn’t, because the franchise’s drafting and development have also created a defense laden with rookie contract stars.
It’s natural, then, that the 49ers’ most dramatic contract standoff is the one involving a star offensive player on his rookie deal who isn’t Purdy.
Wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk is “holding in” at training camp as he vies for a new contract. He’s already requested a trade. And the 49ers are stuck with a bunch of tough options. The reward for developing so many young stars in a salary-capped league is to decide whom to keep and whom to stiff, and few contract sagas have laid that as bare as Aiyuk versus San Francisco.
The 49ers have four options. Each has a fair case as Aiyuk plays the last year of his rookie contract on a club option and prepares for potential free agency in 2025.
1. An extension would have a very low bust risk.
Maybe it’s best to call this a half-option, because it takes two parties to sign a contract extension. But some amount of guaranteed money over some amount of years would get Aiyuk to sign on the dotted line.
Aiyuk is an elite wideout who has gone over 1,000 yards two years running while totaling 15 touchdowns and providing downfield blocking that everyone in football agrees is among the best in the sport.
Of the league’s 10 biggest receiver contracts at the moment (by guaranteed dollars at signing), none looks like a huge bust, and the one closest (Cooper Kupp’s $75 million guarantee from the Los Angeles Rams) comes down to injuries.
Aiyuk will be 26 this season, the same age A.J. Brown was when he signed an $84 million guarantee with the Philadelphia Eagles and a year younger than Tyreek Hill was when the Miami Dolphins pledged him $72 million to be Tua Tagovailoa’s top target. Exactly what the 49ers have offered so far is unclear, especially in terms of deal structure. Something around eighth or 10th among receivers in average annual value seems close.
Aiyuk has missed one game in three years. He’s not likely to become an albatross. He’s also unlike anyone else the 49ers have. Aiyuk is San Francisco’s best route runner by a mile, posting a 77.4% burn rate last year that dwarfed teammates George Kittle’s 67.0% and Deebo Samuel’s 64.0%. He also easily led the NFL in burn percentage among those with at least 75 targets.
Aiyuk is by far Purdy’s favorite downfield threat, with an average depth of target at 14.3 yards –way ahead of any Niners regular. He also led the league with a 45.7% big-play rate, topping former Buffalo Bills WR Gabe Davis (43.9%), ex-Detroit Lions wideout Josh Reynolds (42.9%) and even Miami’s Hill (41.2%) in those rankings.
Without him, Kyle Shanahan would have to develop a different field-stretcher to maintain the offense’s shape, including opening up opportunities on short and intermediate routes for Samuel, Kittle and tailback Christian McCaffrey.
Aiyuk isn’t just elite. For the 49ers, he is different. And a player like that, at 26, is worth the gamble of a big deal. At least in a vacuum.
2. The franchise tag might be unusually enticing next offseason.
Assume Aiyuk returns to the 49ers at some point during the season, plays well, and still doesn’t find a long-term deal to his liking. The club could then hang onto Aiyuk for an amount that would probably be a bit north of 2024’s $21.8 million figure for tagged wide receivers. (There’s just one this year, the Cincinnati Bengals’ Tee Higgins.)
That pushes Aiyuk’s free agency to 2026 barring a highly unlikely second tagging.
Aiyuk would hate it, but the 49ers might find it a good arrangement, and not just because NFL teams enjoy playing their collectively bargained trump card in contract negotiations. Forestalling Aiyuk’s exit but exactly one season means paying him a premium salary for the last year of Purdy’s rookie contract, before he gets a raise of 50 or 60 times his current cap hit.
Teams are always tempted to use the franchise tag, but the 49ers might be more tempted than any team has ever been heading into 2025. No team’s cap situation has ever been poised to change overnight the way San Francisco’s is poised to do in 2026.
3. Aiyuk wants a trade. The 49ers don’t have a good reason to give him one.
The team spent two 2024 NFL Draft picks on receivers: Florida’s Ricky Pearsall in the first round and Arizona’s Jacob Cowing in the fourth. Those looked more like long-term hedges against an Aiyuk departure than short-term ones, but if Shanahan and Lynch think they have a rookie contributor, they might be inclined to get whatever they can get for Aiyuk and keep an eye on the future.
The problem is that the 49ers are Super Bowl contenders. They may not believe in the concept of the “championship window,” but to the extent any team has a golden opportunity to win the whole thing, the 49ers of the next two years – before Purdy’s big raise – are the answer.
There’s no chance Pearsall and Cowing combine to be an adequate Aiyuk replacement this year, and potential contributors in 2025, 2026 and 2027 are flatly much less valuable to Lynch than guaranteed contributors in 2024 and 2025.
That’s the challenge of Aiyuk’s public trade request. He’s still two years from being able to get away from the 49ers, and those are the exact two years of Purdy’s remaining rookie contract.
Meanwhile, the 49ers would need a disproportionate return for what’s already a hugely valuable player. San Francisco is incentivized not to give in, and other teams would find themselves parting with a relative ransom.
4. The anticlimactic option: The Niners let Aiyuk walk after the season.
The dirty secret of San Francisco’s roster management picture is that Purdy isn’t the team’s only important player who will need a new contract. Two starting offensive linemen, guard Aaron Banks and right tackle Colton McKivitz, are unrestricted free agents after 2024. (McKivitz struggled last year, but the 49ers determined he was the best they had and will start him again this season.)
Linebacker Dre Greenlaw will be free to go, too, potentially denying the 49ers the ideal partner for superstar Fred Warner. Outside cornerback Charvarius Ward, nickelback Deommodore and safety Talanoa Hufanga – three critical secondary players – are poised to hit the open market too.
The defensive backfield will be a particularly big point of concern. Ward is the star of the cornerback room, but Lenoir’s 42.3% burn-allowed rate was the best among Niners corners in 2023.
Hufanga is coming off a torn ACL but has been one of the league’s better safeties over his first three seasons. Some combination of them will be priorities to re-up, and all of that becomes necessary a year before what ESPN’s Bill Barnwell has dubbed a contractual “Brockalypse.”
Aiyuk is great. The 49ers are great. After one more season, they might just be great separately.
Be sure to check out our MLB, NBA, NFL, college football and golf coverage. And follow us on X and Instagram for more!