It appears San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk has confirmed some of the reporting about the tumult during his contract talks with the team.
Aiyuk and the 49ers agreed to a four-year, $120 million contract with $76 million guaranteed, but not without a little trouble that the receiver now says was his doing.
“I’m not going to lie, I made it a little more difficult than I had to at the end,” Aiyuk told reporters on Tuesday according to NBC Sports Bay Area’s Matt Maiocco.
This makes sense given what happened leading up to and immediately following the reporting that a deal was done.
General manager John Lynch was visibly frustrated in a press conference after the team’s final cuts when Aiyuk hadn’t signed a deal. The club was practicing and Aiyuk was expected to return to the field according to Lynch. Aiyuk did not return at that point.
Then after the contract was reported, ESPN’s Adam Schefter released a report saying the contract Aiyuk signed had been on the table for nearly three weeks.
This tracked with previous reporting. Schefter said the contract went on the table on August 12. A report from NFL Media’s Mike Garafolo surfaced on August 13 that said the 49ers and Aiyuk were close on a deal, but there was a quibble over guarantees in the final year.
Since there are no guarantees in the final year of Aiyuk’s deal, and since Aiyuk admitted to making it harder than it needed to be, it stands to reason the Schefter report was accurate.
Exactly how things went down will likely never be known. Whether the exact contract was on the table for nearly three weeks, or if a slightly tweaked one was eventually signed will surely be lost to history.
However, that Aiyuk was willing to say that part of the struggles at the end were his doing is a fascinating wrinkle to consider after the fact.
Luckily for the 49ers, who signed what when and who made what difficult doesn’t matter since the All-Pro receiver is now inked to a long-term extension with his eyes set on playing Week 1 vs. the New York Jets.
