Remember Brandon Aiyuk? Let’s catch you up: He’s the San Francisco 49ers wide receiver who had a super sick 2023 season and got big-time paid in 2024. Then he had a huge knee injury, went into incognito mode, got guaranteed money voided from his contract, came out of incognito mode and then pretty much just went crazy.
He spent this offseason dogging the 49ers as a franchise and essentially begging/demanding that the Commanders trade for him. It was really weird.
Well, good news! He’s ready to actually go through the right channels and come back to the NFL. Is someone desperate enough to sign him? Woof … maybe. Let’s see who that could be.
How does Brandon Aiyuk get moved?
I could bog you down with the ins and outs of the process for a player to get reinstated, but that’s boring. These are the two important things to know:
Aiyuk got a new agent, Drew Rosenhaus. He’s a big-time agent who represents guys like Jalen Carter, Chris Olave, and Nico Collins; he knows what he’s doing.
He says he’s going to show up to the 49ers facility on Friday. IF he actually does that, he and the team can agree on where to go from there. It could be a situation where they release him, or they could trade him … that’s the sticky part. The important thing is that there’s a 0.000001 percent chance that he and the team get on the same page and he plays for them.
Whatever way he and the team agree to part ways … it doesn’t really matter. Over the offseason, Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch were pretty adamant that they would take the bare minimum in terms of a trade package just to get the guy out of their hair.
So essentially, if a desperate team wants to deal with Brandon Aiyuk and his lunacy, they could probably trade a sixth- or seventh-round pick for him … or wait to see if they can get him when he’s released.
When I use the word desperate, I mean desperate.
When it comes to the NFL, teams have to be really desperate to make moves to get some of the more controversial players.
Remember Christian Wilkins? He was a stone-cold killer for the Dolphins, then the Raiders paid him in 2024, and they released him in the summer of 2025 because of some really weird Human Resources-related reasons … He hasn’t been mentioned since.
Some guys are too nuts for teams to want to deal with, and there’s a real chance that Aiyuk is at that level.
Kansas City Chiefs
The Chiefs don’t shy away from problematic players. Guys like Kareem Hunt, Tyreek Hill, Rashee Rice, and Justin Tucker make Aiyuk look like a saint.
The Chiefs are also really hurting for wide receiver talent. If they aren’t able to make a trade for Brian Thomas Jr. or Josh Downs before the deadline, there wouldn’t be a soul in the world who would be surprised if Aiyuk went to Kansas City …
And I’m sure the reasoning would be along the lines of, ‘They’re a professional football organization, not a professional human organization. Aiyuk is a professional football player and not a professional human. He can help us win a championship.’
Either that or Andy Reid would go up on the podium and talk about cheeseburgers. The beat writers would totally forget the press conference was about Aiyuk, and just chuckle about it later.
New England Patriots
The Patriots are in deep right now, wide receiver-wise. They traded for A.J. Brown, and now he’s missing time with a knee thing … and it’s a knee thing that apparently might be kind of a huge problem.
On top of that, they traded Kayshon Boutte to the Texans in the offseason. That means their healthy-ish wide receiver group is Efton Chism, Pop Douglas, Kyle Williams, and Mack Hollins … I imagine that’s not the level of talent that they were hoping they’d have catching passes from Drake Maye in November.
If they don’t feel good about Brown’s availability for the rest of the season (or even further in the future), Aiyuk has shown that he can be a pretty dominant receiver in his own right … And it’s not too different from Browns’ potential level of dominance. I’m not saying it’s a one-for-one comparison … But it’s not that far off.
Washington Commanders
Let's say the Eagles beat the Giants on Sunday, and the Commanders beat the Rams … All of a sudden, Washington is back in the race for the NFC East … But they’ve been lacking firepower at wide receiver since Terry McLaurin is out for the season with a torn patellar tendon. That’s a perfect storm for a reeling team to make a desperate move.
Maybe there’s a world where they’ve forgotten how weird it was when Aiyuk was doing all of his Commanders-cosplaying stuff over the summer, and maybe they want to try to make sure they do whatever they can to take advantage of the roster and Jayden Daniels’ rookie contract.
Would it be crazy if they signed Brandon Aiyuk? Yes, absolutely. Would it kind of make sense? Football-wise, yes.
Los Angeles Rams
The Rams wagered the future of the franchise on having a successful 2026 season. No one knows how much football life Matthew Stafford has left in him, so they went all in and tried to build a defense that would complement their mega-high-powered offense.
They traded a combined two first-round picks, a second-round pick, a third-round pick, a fifth-round pick, a sixth-round pick, and Jared Verse for Trent McDuffie and Myles Garrett.
That’s a lot, and it meant they went into the season without a whole bunch of draft capital if they wanted/needed to trade for someone during the season … Well, guess what? They kind of really need to trade for someone during the season.
Davante Adams went down with a hamstring injury, had surgery on it, and now he’s out until mid-December, at best. On top of that, Puka Nacua has already dealt with an injury this season … and with the way he plays and the hits he takes, who's to say that it won’t happen again?
Now, the Rams have a 4-4 record and an 0-2 record in the NFC West. They can’t really afford to drop any more games because their passing game isn’t as explosive and efficient as it was supposed to be.
For them to sign Brandon Aiyuk, they’d have to realize that they’ve backed themselves into a corner, and the only way out is to pick up an incredibly cheap and volatile player. That’s a tough spot to be in … But this is the season they signed up for with their offseason moves.
Selfishly, this would be great content. A player who hates his former team goes to a divisional rival? That’s delicious.
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