ORLANDO, Fla. — Standing on the sideline at Michigan’s professional day final week, San Francisco 49ers common supervisor John Lynch and Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin shared fun when Tomlin introduced up Niners huge receiver Brandon Aiyuk.
Hypothesis about Aiyuk’s future with the staff has persevered for greater than a yr and reached a crescendo this offseason as Aiyuk prepares for the ultimate yr on his rookie contract. That features rumored trades all around the NFL map, together with to Tomlin’s Steelers.
Chatting with a small group of reporters Monday afternoon on the NFL league conferences, Lynch provided his most definitive assertion but that not solely is Aiyuk not obtainable for commerce however that the staff has already begun discussing with Aiyuk and his representatives the parameters of an extension that may preserve him round long run.
“[Tomlin] is like, ‘Bro, what is going on on,'” Lynch mentioned, laughing. “I promise you nothing’s happening there. We’re actively speaking with Brandon making an attempt to determine one thing out. Now we have a great historical past of working with the blokes we need to get achieved to get one thing achieved and it takes two sides. So, can we try this? We’ll see. There’s various totally different instructions that it may go however we admire the heck out of Brandon and who he’s as a participant, and we wish him to be part of the Niners. We’ll work in the direction of making {that a} actuality.”
Aiyuk, in the meantime, posted an Instagram story Monday afternoon with a collection of emojis that translate to, “cash talks, bulls— walks.”
The commerce conjecture surrounding Aiyuk has by no means come from the 49ers. Finally yr’s league conferences in Arizona, Lynch confirmed that the Niners had been approached by different groups to gauge their curiosity in dealing Aiyuk, just for Lynch and coach Kyle Shanahan to reject these overtures.
However that hasn’t stopped the dialog from persevering with, largely due to the Niners’ more and more top-heavy roster that features extremely paid stars resembling left deal with Trent Williams, defensive finish Nick Bosa, receiver Deebo Samuel, tight finish George Kittle and linebacker Fred Warner.
The surface assumption has been that the 49ers can be unable to signal the ascending Aiyuk — who’s coming off a 75-catch, 1,342-yard, 7-touchdown season that landed him a second staff All Professional nod — due to the cap crunch created by these different contracts.
Aiyuk is presently scheduled to depend $14.124 million towards the cap in 2024 ought to he play underneath the fifth-year possibility the staff exercised on the 2020 No. 25 total choose final summer time. With a contract extension, the Niners may really decrease that cap hit and preserve a comparatively small quantity for 2025 in order that by the point his bigger salaries kick in, a few of these different big-money offers can be off the books.
“There’s nothing higher than drafting a man, creating a man, watching him flourish after which rewarding him,” Lynch mentioned. “That is actually what we might like to do.”
Whereas Lynch is optimistic a deal for Aiyuk will be achieved, he additionally was clear that it will not be straightforward. The Niners have a historical past of getting profitable contract extensions achieved with their homegrown stars resembling Kittle, Warner, Samuel and Bosa however these discussions have all the time lasted as much as and typically into coaching camp. Simply final yr, Bosa’s megadeal wasn’t finalized till days earlier than the season opener towards the Steelers.
It is potential an identical state of affairs may play out for Aiyuk, who the Niners envision as a part of their subsequent nucleus of stars to construct round.
“We’re speaking along with his guys and making an attempt to speak about some parameters of some issues,” Lynch mentioned. “We’re having discussions. That is a great factor.”
On Monday, Lynch additionally defined the accounting error that value the Niners a fifth-round draft choose in 2025 and 4 draft slots on the finish of the fourth spherical this yr.
In keeping with Lynch, throughout the 2020 season the Niners overpaid a participant by $75,000. Whereas that cost didn’t push them over the wage cap, in addition they didn’t uncover it till the autumn of 2022. After trying to recoup the cash, the 49ers finally reported the error to the league. Lynch indicated that delay in reporting is why the NFL determined to penalize the staff as a lot because it did even when he disagreed with the punishment.
“I’ve a distinction of opinion on the severity of the self-discipline,” Lynch mentioned. “We take accountability for what occurred … We personal our half, we have gone by an entire mitigation deal to treatment a number of the points that occurred, however the league determined to impose that. So, you’re taking your medication, and you progress on.”
As for a few injured Niners, Lynch confirmed that Kittle and cornerback Charvarius Ward each had core muscle surgical procedures that may preserve them out for all the offseason program, however they need to have the ability to return for coaching camp.
“I’ve had that surgical procedure myself once I was enjoying and [it has a] fairly excessive success price of therapeutic and it feels so much higher when you get it achieved,” Lynch mentioned. “It hurts consistently having that core tugging at you. So these guys have each bought that mounted.”