Brandon Aiyuk requested a meeting with the 49ers in the midst of negotiations on a sizable contract extension according to ESPN’s Ryan Clark. It’s not entirely clear exactly what such a meeting means or what kind of fruit it will bear, but there are certainly clear best and worst case scenarios for San Francisco.
The best-case scenario is that Aiyuk wants to clear the air on some of the reporting surrounding the negotiations and his TikTok that appears to show Aiyuk telling a former college teammate that the 49ers don’t want him. Sometimes a face-to-face meeting is best and can help untangle some of the misconceptions one or both sides had in the negotiations.
Aiyuk in the absolute best-case scenario walks out of Monday’s meeting with a new contract in hand. The more realistic version is that he leaves Monday in a better place to negotiate a long-term extension.
The worst-case scenario is that Aiyuk is so displeased by the meeting that he demands a trade and vows to never play for the 49ers again. Even with this outcome he’s still under contract through 2024 and San Francisco may not feel inclined to oblige his demand, instead calling his bluff and having him play out the final year of his rookie contract before getting to unrestricted free agency.
Chances are the meeting winds up somewhere in the middle here. Perhaps some air gets cleared and the 49ers can ensure Aiyuk they want him on their team, while Aiyuk can make the case for any unease he has directly to the 49ers without having to go through an agent.
It’s unlikely Aiyuk is going to come down on his price with a face-to-face meeting, and it’s unlikely the 49ers are going to come way up from theirs. If the two sides can get through Monday without anything drastic happening, they’ll be in a good position moving forward on the typical closer-to-training-camp timeline the 49ers use to get these types of deals done.
