Yes, the 49ers really could trade Brandon Aiyuk — and more potential roster moves

The 49ers are at least open to the idea of trading star receiver Brandon Aiyuk — and, surprisingly, it would be financially feasible for the team to do so. In fact, it could save the team $110 million.

Teams don’t normally have a relatively easy out just one season after signing a player to a massive extension. Typically, such a move would cause dead money associated with early guarantees to accelerate and flood the current-year books. But the 49ers built a potential escape hatch into the four-year, $120 million agreement that they struck with Aiyuk last August.

Aiyuk’s 2024 compensation came primarily via a $23 million signing bonus, but that’s all the 49ers are on the hook for in terms of cap payments — for now. In the event of a trade, this translates to a potential dead money hit of $18.4 million, which is just $7.2 million more expensive than Aiyuk’s existing cap hit. In fact, it’s actually more financially feasible for the 49ers to trade Aiyuk than it was to trade Deebo Samuel, a move that’s set to incur a $31.6 million dead money charge on the team’s 2025 books. (The 49ers have over $50 million in cap space this season, so they’re capable of absorbing both moves.)

Aiyuk’s second chunk of guaranteed money isn’t scheduled to hit until April 1, when he’s due a $22.9 million bonus. When that hits, it’ll effectively become Aiyuk’s second signing bonus. The option’s cap hit will amortize over five seasons, leaving the 49ers with a much higher potential dead money charge if they move on from Aiyuk. This April 1 date will also see a third bonus, a $24.9 million chunk due in 2026, vest into a full guarantee.

So the window is open through the end of this month. If the 49ers trade Aiyuk before April 1, they will have offloaded all contractual obligations for 2025 and beyond to another team. In that scenario, Aiyuk will have essentially played 2024 for the 49ers on a rental deal worth one year and $24.1 million.

However, it does take two to tango.

This is where Aiyuk’s injury — an ACL and MCL tear last October — throws a wrench. Aiyuk didn’t undergo surgery until mid-November, so it’s unclear if he’ll be back in time for Week 1 of 2025. This is vital information for prospective trade suitors and for the 49ers, who’d presumably like to finalize their plan for the receiver position before free agency opens.

What we do know is that Aiyuk, who turns 27 this month, was in high demand last offseason. The New England Patriots were willing to trade for him. The Cleveland Browns were willing to send second- and fourth-round picks and receiver Amari Cooper to the 49ers for Aiyuk during last August’s acrimonious negotiations, before he re-signed with the 49ers and subsequently tore his ACL. Aiyuk vetoed that trade by signaling that he wouldn’t agree to a new contract with the Browns.

But now that he’s under contract through 2028 with the 49ers, Aiyuk no longer has veto power. And at the NFL Combine last week, 49ers general manager Lynch certainly didn’t quash a question regarding the team’s interest in potentially trading Aiyuk.

“That typically happens with really good players,” Lynch said of outside queries regarding Aiyuk. “I remember having similar conversations two years ago. You get calls and you always listen to calls. I think since Kyle and I have been here, we’ve been certainly a top-five, I think No. 2, number two, cash spending team.

“So at some point you have to reset a little bit or at least recalibrate. You can’t just keep pressing the pedal, and I think there’s some good that could come out. We need to get younger. We were the oldest team in football trying to make a run at the deal last year.”

The fact that Lynch turned a question about the 49ers’ interest regarding an Aiyuk trade into thoughts about streamlining spending habits certainly doesn’t seem like an accident. Sure, Aiyuk was quarterback Brock Purdy’s top weapon in 2023. But the acrimony generated through subsequent contract negotiations was a real thing. And if any of it persists, or if the 49ers are just looking to maximize cost efficiency of the receiver room, trades of both Samuel and Aiyuk cannot be ruled out.

It does seem that a price correction might be brewing in the receiver market following years of exploding contract values there. The Buffalo Bills parted ways with their top two wideouts, Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis, last offseason — and still made it to the AFC Championship Game. The Los Angeles Rams are looking to trade veteran stalwart Cooper Kupp, and Seahawks star DK Metcalf has requested a trade amidst negotiations for a contract extension with Seattle.

The 49ers have, of course, already made the decision to move on from Samuel. That saved them $17.5 million in salary-cap space. Doing the same with Aiyuk still seems unlikely because of his injury and previously excellent fit with Purdy, but the odd history here coupled with that $110 million of potential savings means it cannot be categorically ruled out.

The 49ers might be able to get a head start on free agency, which opens with the NFL’s legal tampering window on Monday. That’s because some intriguing players are already free agents, including 29-year-old edge rusher Joey Bosa.

Yes, that’s the older brother of 49ers’ star Nick Bosa. The Los Angeles Chargers released Joey on Wednesday. He can immediately sign with a new team.

Would a pairing with his brother on the 49ers, who’ve been espousing those virtues of youth and cost efficiency this offseason, make sense? It would — but only at the right price. And it’s possible that Joey Bosa, who’s missed 23 games over the past three seasons (but only three games in 2024), might be available at a very affordable rate. The 49ers are looking for value, and we’ll see if the sibling connection might even foster a family discount.

“It’d be cool at some point,” Joey Bosa said last summer of playing with Nick.

Also keep an eye on Khalil Mack, who was Bosa’s teammate with the Chargers over the past three years. The former Defensive Player of the Year just turned 34 but has still been playing at a high level. He’s scheduled for free agency and teams like the 49ers can begin engaging his representation on Monday.

Most of the NFL’s value can be found in youth. But that’s not a hard and fast rule, especially when great players and possible bargain rates are involved.

Over the next week, pay attention to what happens with running back Jordan Mason. The 25-year-old is scheduled to hit restricted free agency on Wednesday, but the 49ers can tender him an offer that includes a right of first refusal ahead of then.

It’ll make sense for the 49ers to exact contractual control over Mason for 2025 even if the second-round tender price — $5.3 million — is too rich for their tastes. That’s because Mason has been drawing trade interest from around the league after rushing for 1,253 bruising yards on 5.3 yards per carry over his first three seasons. The value of running backs, evidenced when Philadelphia’s Saquon Barkley just became the first player at the position to sign for $20 million annually, is climbing.

It’s worth noting that 49ers general manager John Lynch and coach Kyle Shanahan have twice traded away a running back for a fifth-round pick. Most notably, the 49ers did so back in 2020 after Matt Breida found himself in the boat that Mason is currently in.

The 49ers tendered Breida at the second-round level. Nine days after Breida signed the tender, the 49ers traded him to the Miami Dolphins.

Given the late 2024 emergence of Isaac Guerendo behind Christian McCaffrey, the 49ers already have two viable running backs under contract. Let’s see if they follow the Breida path and execute what’s effectively a sign-and-trade with Mason, or if they opt to stockpile the running back room with depth.

Say the 49ers executed the previously unthinkable and did actually trade Samuel and Aiyuk in the same offseason. Where would they turn at receiver?

The late-season emergence of rookie Ricky Pearsall is a key cog in this entire thought process. Purdy and Josh Dobbs targeted Pearsall 18 times over the final two games. He racked up 14 catches, 210 yards and two touchdowns.

Then there’s veteran wideout Jauan Jennings, who likely missed a 1,000-yard season only because of a Week 18 ejection which the NFL later acknowledged was a mistake. Jennings, 28, is entering the final year of his contract worth only about $6 million annually and seems to be a very logical candidate for an extension. Even a doubling of pay for Jennings would qualify as a bargain.

But while the 49ers are high on youngsters Jacob Cowing and Terique Owens, the son of Terrell Owens, they’ll likely need to be involved in the veteran receiver market when free agency opens next week — even if Aiyuk remains on the team.

Wideouts Keenan Allen, Robert Woods, and Darius Slayton are all mid-tier names to watch. If star Davante Adams, released this week by the New York Jets, is willing to play for a discount, he also figures to be an option. The East Palo Alto native has expressed a desire to play on the West Coast. But the 49ers have not signaled that they’re willing to pay a 32-year-old receiver massive money. While Adams is still good, we can continue circling back to the fact that cost efficiency is a definite priority for the 49ers right now.

Although tightening of the belt was the immediate takeaway from Lynch’s interview sessions at the combine, it’s important to note that this was not the first time the GM had vocalized the 49ers’ desire and need to restrain spending at an offseason press conference.

“We’ve been very aggressive — top-five, top-10 team in terms of cash [spending],” Lynch said in April 2022 following a free agency period during which the 49ers made only one splashy signing (for cornerback Charvarius Ward). “And we’ve had the pedal down for five years. It was time to probably, on the whole, take a step back in terms of the amount of cash and cap we were spending.”

At the 2023 NFL Combine, when asked if the 49ers were willing to spend money on a high-priced defensive tackle, Lynch indicated that such a maneuver wasn’t in the cards.

“You pay through your ears [for that],” Lynch said. “So we’ve gotta be creative and think of some other ways.”

But less than a month later, the 49ers, in fact, paid through their ears for defensive tackle Javon Hargrave. They awarded him a contract worth up to $81 million. And just over a year after that, the 49ers made major financial commitments to running back Christian McCaffrey and — after long standoffs — Williams and Aiyuk.

None of that spending came all too far on the heels of Lynch’s commentary preaching financial restraint, so it’s important to take all this with a grain of salt.

The simplest takeaway is probably the correct one: The 49ers are coming off a year of particularly poor return on investment. Aiyuk, McCaffrey, Williams, and Hargrave combined to miss the majority of a 2024 season that saw the team finish with a 6-11 record.

This was a wake-up call for the 49ers, who’d been on a spending spree during their run of heartbreaking finishes, all of which were agonizingly close to Super Bowl glory. It shouldn’t be surprising that a reset — not dissimilar to the ones the Bills, the Rams, and the defending champion Philadelphia Eagles have all recently and successfully executed — might be in the cards.

In some ways, this movement already began last year with the release of defensive lineman Arik Armstead. That, combined with the recent Samuel trade and pending Hargrave release (which will be finalized when the new league year begins next week), has already taken a cumulative $76 million off the books for the 49ers.

The 49ers aren’t going into hiding, but they want to make sure their big-money spending is delivering A-list results. And wherever that’s not happening, they’ve indicated a strong interest in cost-controlled draft picks or cash and cap savings — or both — in return.

It’s a value play, and we should view all of the 49ers’ upcoming strategic plays through that lens.