News of Brandon Aiyuk requesting a trade broke as Tom Pelissero guest-hosted on the "Rich Eisen Show," allowing the NFL Network insider to share his immediate thoughts with the audience.
Pelissero doesn't believe Aiyuk's trade request changes much from the 49ers' perspective, but it does bring the standoff back to the forefront. San Francisco holds significant leverage in the contract negotiations. Aiyuk is slated to earn $14.124 million on a team-exercised fifth-year option and can be franchise-tagged in future years.
The 49ers have handed out massive contracts in recent years to their star players and free agents and are gearing up to make quarterback Brock Purdy one of the highest-paid players in NFL history.
"If you're a 49ers team that is paying Deebo [Samuel], that has paid Nick Bosa, that's going to have to pay Brock Purdy probably $60 million, or something totally nuts, in a year or so from now, and pay the Deommodore Lenoirs, your next wave of stars coming up, and, oh, yeah, pay the guys you signed in free agency, like Javon Hargrave, at some point, somebody has to not be the one who gets paid," Pelissero commented.
Pelissero notes that the 49ers didn't help themselves by waiting this long to get a deal done with Aiyuk. The team could have pushed harder in the negotiations before the wide receiver market exploded this offseason.
"In fact, if this deal had gotten done six months ago, maybe a number that they'd be willing to do now would have been good enough," Pelissero stated. "But not with Amon-Ra St. Brown signing a big deal, not with A.J. Brown getting a new deal, not with [Justin] Jefferson getting the money that he did."
Perlissero added, "Brandon Aiyuk certainly is going to want to get closer to Justin Jefferson. He's not going to want to play for $20 million this year."
Aiyuk and the 49ers met on June 24, with Pelissero describing it as a "good" conversation. The two sides agreed to return to the negotiation table after the 4th of July. That has obviously happened, and Aiyuk is not happy with the progress.
Aiyuk subjected himself to approximately $100,000 in fines for missing the 49ers' mandatory minicamp last week. Pelissero noted that the receiver's failure to show up for training camp, which begins next week for veterans, could result in fines of up to two or three million dollars.
If #49ers WR Brandon Aiyuk doesn't report for training camp next week, he's subject to up to $50k/day in fines since he's on 5th year option.
Those fines can be forgiven (as the Niners did with DE Nick Bosa) last year. That's different from mandatory minicamp fines.
— Nick Wagoner (@nwagoner) July 16, 2024
"If he starts missing game checks, now you're talking about a million a week if you're sitting out during the season," Pelissero added. "We've seen other guys do that. He'd have to come back by the middle of the season, or else his contract would toll (meaning, he would fail to accrue an NFL season).
"So one way or another, I would think Brandon Aiyuk is going to suit up for the 49ers this year. That's certainly been the 49ers' intention through the course of this thing. But by now putting out there for the first time—and as of a couple of weeks ago, he had not requested a trade—by doing this now and saying, I want out of here, this certainly does alter the dynamics to a certain degree because it thrusts it to the forefront again."
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