Even NFL agents bashed Brandon Aiyuk’s embarrassing handling of contract dispute

Brandon Aiyuk completely mishandled his contract situation and the ensuing holdout, painting quite the bad picture of himself and the management responsible.

Earlier this offseason, Aiyuk requested a contract extension. The ensuing weeks would see Aiyuk and the San Fransisco 49ers negotiate and negotiate until they couldn't do it anymore.

This negotiation saw one of the bigger roller coaster rides of the entire offseason. One day, Aiyuk wanted to be traded and a deal to the Pittsburgh Steelers seemed to be coming to fruition. The next day, it seemed as though Aiyuk was using the trade market as a negotiating chip, which turned out to be the case.

Still, after all the drama and all the negotiating, Aiyuk ended up agreeing to the exact same contract that the 49ers had offered weeks prior to him actually signing.

This means Aiyuk was a distraction and missed training camp and the preseason for absolutely no reason. He dominated the storylines, and he didn't even get what he wanted. All he did was distract his team and lose valuable practice time with his teammates.

Aiyuk's contract situation leaves a bad taste in the mouths of everybody involved

The staff at The Athletic put together an article that discussed how the agents around the league felt about Aiyuk, his management and the handling of the situation.

One agent, when asked what advice they’d give clients when facing a similar matter, said Aiyuk has “handled it horribly” but acknowledged that “sometimes you must take your grievances public.”

“Silly, yes, but taking the team name or logo off social media accounts can cause a needed stir,” that agent continued.

Another agent said: “I’m a proponent of keeping negotiations quiet, but that isn’t always easy. I think (public displays) do more harm to a player than good.”

The consensus opinion around the league seems to be the same. There's a time and a place to do something similar to what Aiyuk did, but it didn't really seem to be the time nor the place in his situation.

Stepping away from a team or scrubbing them from the player's social media account can do the job of showing the team that the player means business. But nothing that Aiyuk did changed the contract offer.

The 49ers were calling his bluff, refusing to trade him, with the knowledge that he would eventually play. They proved to be right in their guess, which led to Aiyuk looking pretty dumb for all of the holdout drama.