Brandon Aiyuk seems like he's not worth the trouble for the 49ers, Steelers or anyone
By John Buhler
![Brandon Aiyuk, San Francisco 49ers Brandon Aiyuk, San Francisco 49ers](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,w_2957,h_1663,x_0,y_136/c_fill,w_720,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/images/GettyImages/mmsport/229/01j1qsb7skwqzw0exj3t.jpg)
While appearing on The Pivot, San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk may have put his foot in his mouth with this out-of-pocket comment. Aiyuk, who is playing on his fifth-year option season with the 49ers out of Arizona State, one that is worth a shade over $14 million annually, wants either the 49ers or whoever to back up the Brinks truck for him and break that freaking bank, bruh.
Aiyuk has previously expressed frustrations of playing in Kyle Shanahan's offense. For better or worse, it does a great job of spreading the football around, but is ultra-reliant on the ground game being successful. The Shanahan zone blocking scheme is the handed-down recipe he got from Dad ... from Alex Gibbs. Just like novocaine, give it time. It always works! Well, what if it turned Aiyuk off?
Regardless, you can't be saying you're the Lamborghini of wide receivers when you're maybe top 10.
"I don't know what the finances are and what they have going on. If you can't afford a Lamborghini, you can't have one."
It is this sort of comment that makes me wonder if Aiyuk is worth investing this much in if you are San Francisco, let alone taking on that risk of a new deal if one of the other 31 teams end up trading for him. Although the Pittsburgh Steelers need a No. 1 wide receiver badly, it seems as though Aiyuk will be even more gasoline in the never-ending grease fire of adversity soup Mike Tomlin cooks up.
Here is the entire episode of The Pivot where Aiyuk appears. This comment comes after 26 minutes.
You have to ask yourself if a steep Aiyuk financial investment would be worth the perpetual headache.
Brandon Aiyuk may not be worth all the nonsense he is projecting of late
Let's be real. The only thing the Steelers love more than holding onto the past and going 9-8 every year is perpetual nonsense. They seem to draft or acquire players with physical traits, as opposed to those being of the leadership variety. Tomlin is tasked with keeping the class on track for graduation, but you can only deal with so many disruptions erupting from the Sweathogs. Welcome back, Tomlin!
Admittedly, John Lynch and how he does things in his front office have contributed to this as well with how Aiyuk is perceived. A great talent, but a tad too mercurial to be a championship-caliber team's bona-fide No. 1 outside the numbers. Lynch makes decisions, but just because he makes a lot of them doesn't mean he is good at making them even though he seems to think he is a genius at them.
Overall, this has been one of the most annoying offseason dramas to cover in the NFL in quite some time. I was hoping that we wouldn't be getting another Summer of Dak, but the Spring of Aiyuk came early. To me, just re-sign the guy or trade him before training camp to someone who will pay him $30 million-plus annually. That is a bit steep for me, but then again, I would love him over in Atlanta, baby.
For now, the juice may be worth the squeeze, but any downtick in production no longer makes it so.
Next. The 10 biggest betrayals in NFL history. The 10 biggest betrayals in NFL history. dark
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