The most important thing that Brandon Aiyuk trade request will tell us

Seahawks, DK Metcalf, and entire NFL must be watching this situation closely to gauge value of their own receivers: Seaside Joe 1963

Brandon Aiyuk’s most recent game against the Seattle Seahawks is also his best career game* against the Seahawks. Aiyuk was targeted nine times and caught six passes for 126 yards in the 49ers’ 28-16 win over Seattle in Week 14, and that was the fifth straight time that San Francisco has defeated the Seahawks and none of those games have been particularly close.

*Best in terms of yards, but he did lose a fumble

Prior to the most recent game though, Aiyuk wouldn’t stand out, at least not on the box score: 15 yards, 55 yards, 63 yards, 19 yards, 73 yards, and 50 yards, with a combined one touchdown scored in the six previous games against Seattle, those numbers would make Aiyuk seem like a replaceable receiver in San Francisco’s offense.

However, the past is the past, yards are only yards, and Aiyuk has still be the 49ers number one receiver in terms of offensive production and run blocking in each of the past two seasons.

The 49ers playing the 2024 season without Brandon Aiyuk should be an advantage for the Seahawks if it happens, in the same way that Seattle wouldn’t mind it if San Francisco no longer had George Kittle, Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel, or Brock Purdy. Take any of them away and maybe the 49ers are a little easier to defend against in Seattle’s head-to-head matchups; maybe the top of the NFC West mountain isn’t quite as high above sea level as it’s been in the past few years.

These are the scenarios running through people’s heads on Tuesday as Mike Garafolo reported that Aiyuk has officially requested a trade from the 49ers after months (years?) of failing to reach an extension agreement with the team. Mike Florio added that he was hearing before the draft that Aiyuk’s agent was given permission to seed a trade, implying that there wasn’t much interest out there to pay Aiyuk what he wanted in addition to giving up valuable draft picks.

It should all be so easy: If a great player wants more money and the team doesn’t want to give it to him, then trade him to a team that wants a great player at his position and has the cap space to pay him. Aiyuk is a 26-year-old former first round pick who has gotten progressively better over the past four years, helped San Francisco reach the last three NFC Championship games and one Super Bowl, and is lauded as one of the best—if not the best—run blocking receivers in the NFL.

And yet I keep asking myself the same question about Brandon Aiyuk and he wouldn’t particularly like what I have to say if he made the right decision of subscribing to Seaside Joe, which is…

“Does anyone actually think that the 49ers are going to be significantly worse if they play this season without Brandon Aiyuk?”

It’s a paradox because though I think Aiyuk is a great player at a position of importance, I think the best case scenario if you’re a Seahawks fan would be seeing the team EXTEND him, not trade him. I’d rather San Francisco put another $30 million of cap space into a receiver than to trade him, save money, get draft picks, and move forward without Aiyuk.

This is not just a problem for Aiyuk. It’s a problem for most receivers unless they are in the top-top upper echelon of players at the position (Justin Jefferson types), playing for a team that can afford him (Amon-Ra St. Brown types), and not stuck in limbo somewhere between being valued as Michael Pittman and Jefferson.

What I mean by that last part is that it would actually be easier for the 49ers to pay Aiyuk if he was just a little bit worse. They’d love it if a $23 milllion per year salary (like Pittman, Terry McLaurin, and Calvin Ridley) made Aiyuk ecstatic instead of angry. By according to reports, Aiyuk doesn’t want $26 million per season and the 49ers don’t want to pay him more than that.

Both sides of the argument make sense to me—Aiyuk should be more valuable than DeVonta Smith ($25 million per year) but not as valuable as A.J. Brown ($32 million per year)—and that’s the last thing you want if you’re the team, but especially when you’ve found out that you’re not getting satisfactory trade offers for the player. It can only end up in a stalemate and a holdout/hold-in. At least, temporarily.

Aiyuk won’t be able to hold out and the 49ers know that.

The 49ers can’t trade him for fair value, and Aiyuk knows that. In fact, as you’ll find out later in this article, it’s been a long time since any player was traded for a first round pick.

This is all pretty good news for the Seahawks, Rams, and Cardinals—any “issues” for the 49ers are better than no issues at all—but the most important outcome of Aiyuk’s demand for a new contract or a new trade isn’t just whether San Francisco keeps their valuable player or not. No, that’s not why Seahawks fans should be paying attention to this situation between the 49ers and Aiyuk.

Here’s what REALLY matters, how it impacts the next year in the life of DK Metcalf, and the history of players REQUESTING TRADES in the offseason (which happens at least 3-5 times per year by the way) and what happened in almost ALL of those cases because it’ll probably tell us exactly how this situation will end for Aiyuk and the 49ers: