{"id":859211,"date":"2026-04-07T15:45:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T15:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/859211\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T15:45:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T15:45:16","slug":"why-the-49ers-should-cut-brandon-aiyuk-right-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/859211\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the 49ers Should Cut Brandon Aiyuk Right Now"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6g\">Ever since it was revealed that the San Francisco 49ers voided the guaranteed money on Brandon Aiyuk&#8217;s contract, it was clear that his tenure with the 49ers was over.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6j\">Everyone on the 49ers, from the coaches to the players, mentioned that Aiyuk disappeared from the team. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nfl\/49ers\/onsi\/news\/what-caused-brandon-aiyuk-to-disassociate-49ers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">He started to disassociate from the franchise <\/a>during the season.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6m\">It makes sense after what the 49ers had done, especially since he had no future on the team. Cutting him as soon as the 2026 league year began seemed inevitable.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6p\">However, not only did the 49ers not cut Aiyuk, they&#8217;re retaining him with the hope of trading him away. They&#8217;ve even<a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nfl\/49ers\/onsi\/news\/jed-york-would-welcome-brandon-aiyuk-back-to-49ers-for-2026\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> left the door open for him to return<\/a> to the team next season.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6s\">As of now, there&#8217;s zero indication as to when this situation will be resolved. But it seems like the 49ers have no issue holding onto Aiyuk for as long as possible.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6v\">&#8220;I don&#8217;t have a date for it, but I know eventually it&#8217;ll resolve itself,&#8221; Kyle Shanahan said at the NFL annual meeting. &#8220;Hopefully, we can get something for it. I know we&#8217;re in no rush to do that. You&#8217;ve got to do what&#8217;s right for the Niners. You&#8217;re not trying to hook up any other team as fast as you possibly can. Hopefully, we can get something for that, and it&#8217;ll take care of itself.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>49ers should cut Aiyuk right now<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/01knhzyrts15yxh2ydet.jpg\" alt=\"Brandon Aiyu\" title=\"Brandon Aiyu\" width=\"2630\" height=\"1479\" class=\"undefined w-full w-full blur-[5px]\" q:id=\"78\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Jul 24, 2025; Santa Clara, CA, USA; San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk works out with his teammates during the second day of training camp. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images | D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7c\">The 49ers are extremely delusional if they think they can trade Aiyuk. They&#8217;ve aired out all of his dirty laundry. They sunk his value by essentially claiming he &#8220;abandoned&#8221; the team.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-10\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7f\">If all of that is true, and Aiyuk is the villain, why on earth would any team trade for him? The 49ers are insane. They can&#8217;t be this airheaded, and I refuse to believe they are.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-11\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7i\">Retaining <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nfl\/49ers\/onsi\/news\/how-49ers-look-odd-petty-by-retaining-brandon-aiyuk\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Aiyuk is their form of revenge<\/a>, an act of pettiness. It&#8217;s all a complete waste of time. All they&#8217;re doing is opening up distractions to their team.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-12\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7l\">Shanahan, John Lynch, and the players will all be questioned about Aiyuk as long as he remains on the team. Maybe that&#8217;s not a bother to them, which is why they&#8217;re holding onto him.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-13\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7o\">This isn&#8217;t the first time the 49ers have been in a weird situation with a player before. This happened with Jimmy Garoppolo during the 2022 season as well, and that was way more awkward.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-14\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7r\">It makes sense why the 49ers feel okay with this distraction when they&#8217;ve experienced worse. Still, this is all a bad look for the 49ers. Just take the high road and be done with this already.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-15\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7u\">This is all just one big joke and a circus show to hold him at this point. For such a prestigious franchise, you&#8217;d think this is beneath them, and they&#8217;d just put an end to this.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-16\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7x\">Apparently not.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-17\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"80\">Follow Jose on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/JS3Sanchezz\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">X (Twitter) @JS3sanchezz<\/a>\u00a0to interact with him on the 49ers and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ever since it was revealed that the San Francisco 49ers voided the guaranteed money on Brandon Aiyuk&#8217;s contract,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":859212,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2078],"tags":[375,390,2604,1327,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-859211","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arizona-cardinals","8":"tag-arizona","9":"tag-arizona-cardinals","10":"tag-arizonacardinals","11":"tag-cardinals","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116364203896498201","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=859211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/859212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=859211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=859211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=859211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}