• The San Francisco 49ers’ tone with other teams has certainly changed on wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk as his camp hold-in has continued. Teams inquiring before the NFL draft were hit with a very high asking price and left with the idea that San Francisco wasn’t dealing him. As far as I can tell, that’s been the reality. The Niners preferred to keep Aiyuk, and keep him beyond just this year.
Now? It appears San Francisco is more receptive to trade overtures on its star receiver. As a result, it’s had productive talks with Cleveland and New England on a potential deal, with those potential deals contingent on Aiyuk’s reps working out a contract with a new team. It’d be complicated, and it’s not a sure thing. But the reality seems to be that the Niners are looking for a conclusion, one way or another.
One thing that’s interesting here is San Francisco, I’m told, asked for players to be packaged with picks. The Niners inquired on Amari Cooper with the Browns, and they inquired on Kendrick Bourne (former Niner from 2017 to ’20) with the Patriots. Both of those teams engaged San Francisco on trading for Aiyuk before the draft, but neither got very far.
So as to where things stand now, part of this is up to the Niners, who could also use this as a vehicle to revive contract talks with Aiyuk. In any case, whether it’s through Aiyuk returning or a receiver coming in, they have to take care of this year’s team first. That, of course, makes sense, based on the fact that San Francisco has been to four NFC title games and two Super Bowls over the past five years.
If Aiyuk is back on a big deal, that’s a win.
If Cooper or Bourne are on the roster instead, with picks coming over with them, well, it looks like they’d be O.K. with that, too.
• What happens with Aiyuk, of course, relates to the window of opportunity that the Niners are in, one that may narrow a bit as certain key players get older, and a big quarterback contract is added to the team’s salary cap. So while I was there last week, I did want to ask guys if they felt pressure, or even a certain responsibility, to deliver on all of the potential we’ve known the Niners have had for the past half decade.
“I think when you have a bunch of really good players, you have to win as soon as possible because everybody’s got to get paid, especially when you have a quarterback,” All-Pro pass rusher Nick Bosa told me. “I think having a quarterback gives you some peace of mind. You know you have a franchise quarterback on the team, so you’ll always have a chance. The core guys that I’ve been around with, Trent [Williams], George [Kittle], Juice [Kyle Juszczyk], Fred [Warner], we definitely want to get one together.
“I don’t think there’s any extra motivation to what we do because we’re all so self-motivated. But we want to win it. And we want to do it for Kyle [Shanahan] as well—he’s been close a bunch of times.”
As for that team they have, Bosa continued, there’s really no doubt on what it’s capable of delivering. As he sees it, this is the best team he’s been a part of.
“Yeah, I do,” he said. “I’m always excited like that every year. I try not to think about that too much at this point because it’s so early. [But] we have everybody back, and we’ve added some new pieces. We’re as deep and as good as we’ve been. It seems a little more relaxed overall just because we know that everyone’s a pro and everybody’s going to come in and work. You don’t really have to get on people as much. We’ve all been through it enough times to know we’re going to prepare ourselves as much as we can. You don’t need to rip people every camp practice.
“It’s a little more of a chill vibe from what I’ve seen in camp. Guys are practicing extremely hard. It’s hard to get on people because you see everybody wanting to get better.”
Which, they hope, gives them that little bit extra to push a really good team over the top.
