The San Francisco 49ers haven’t made much noise during the offseason as their main priority seems to be getting Brock Purdy a contract extension. Some are looking around their team and looking at who could also be available for trade, and Brandon Aiyuk’s name has come up more times than not. Unfortunately for those people, the rumors as false, as general manager John Lynch shared an update on the wide receiver.
“At the league meeting this week, 49ers GM John Lynch said he expected WR Brandon Aiyuk to stick in 2025,” NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “His 2026 option-bonus guarantee triggered yesterday. He’s owed $24.875m this year, $27m in ’26. The $76m that was effectively guaranteed at signing is now fully guaranteed.”
Aiyuk missed most of the year last season after tearing his ACL and MCL. There is still no update on when he will return to the field, but when he is back, he should be the top receiver in the room with Deebo Samuel Sr. being traded to the Washington Commanders.
As Aiyuk is sidelined, receivers such as Ricky Pearsall, Jauan Jennings, and Demarcus Robinson will have to step up.
49ers plan to keep Brandon Aiyuk a part of team
Lynch was asked at the NFL annual meeting if they’ve had conversations with teams about trading Aiyuk, according to Grant Cohn of Sports Illustrated.
“There’s probably spillover from last year when we were going through his contract thing, and a number of teams became interested in Brandon,” Lynch said. “People called, you always take calls from folks, but we’ve always been interested in Brandon being part of the Niners. We made that decision when we signed him. It’s good to hear that he’s tracking well with his progress. He’s working really hard to do so, and I expect fully that Aiyuk will be a part of us moving forward.”
With how large Aiyuk’s contract was, they weren’t able to keep some of their role players during free agency this season. With Purdy set to have a big payday as well, it’ll be interesting to see what moves the 49ers make to help improve their team.
Though Aiyuk seems like an easy trade target, the 49ers are lacking a receiver on the team that can be the go-to target. Aiyuk may be the closest to that, but he has to get on the field first, and nobody knows when that will be.
