Matt Maiocco explains what the 49ers will do with Brandon Aiyuk
Nick and Ryan are joined by Matt Maiocco to break down what he believes the 49ers will do with Brandon Aiyuk with a history of players holding out in San Francisco
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00:00It jumps on with us now. I'm sure it's been very, very quiet today. Not much to certainly talk about when it comes to the 49ers.
00:06No. So the Brandon Aiyud thing, Matt, it doesn't feel like a surprise. Kind of felt like this conversation of a trade request was inevitable.
00:14But at this point now, the question obviously becomes, will they trade him? Won't they trade him? We've talked about it a lot on the show.
00:22I don't think he's going anywhere. You're a lot closer to the team, obviously, than us. What do you think happens with this scenario?
00:27Yeah, I'm with you. I don't think he's going anywhere. I guess the bigger question is, what's the next move for him and his agent?
00:35He's still on the books to make $14.1 million this year. Can the 49ers still sign him to a contract extension?
00:45Training camp opens a week from today. That's when veterans report.
00:50So the 49ers have been through this before. This is kind of like every year, it's something very similar.
00:56Not necessarily the same thing, but it was going back, I guess, five years. It was George Kittle.
01:04A lot of hand-wringing and contentious negotiations. And the deal gets done right before training camp.
01:12The next year is Fred Warner. Things were moving slowly. There wasn't a whole lot going on.
01:17And then right before training camp, he signs. And two years ago, it was Devo Samuel. He requested a trade, too.
01:24He requested it before the draft. People were wondering if they were going to trade him before the draft.
01:30That didn't happen. And then they ended up signing him right before training camp.
01:34Last year, Nick Bowe said that went right up to the start of the regular season.
01:38But I guess the difference here with the Brandon Iatt situation is the 49ers have already paid those guys I just mentioned.
01:47In addition to paying Christian McCaffrey and Trent Williams and others.
01:52And then you look on the horizon, a year from now, Brock Birdie will go from one of the lowest paid players on the 49ers to one of the highest paid players in the league.
02:02So at some point, with the roster set up the way it is, they won't be able to pay everybody their true market value.
02:10The question is, what do they do with Brandon Iyuk? Do they try to kick the can down the road and have him play on that fifth-year option, which is 14.1?
02:24What will Iyuk think about that? I can tell you what he'll think about that. He wouldn't like that at all.
02:31But I don't know what other recourse he has, because he's a professional football player. He gets paid to play football.
02:40You're going to play for $14 million if it means not playing for zero. So it'll be interesting to see how this whole thing plays out.