Over the past two-and-a-half years the San Francisco 49ers have made big investments in keeping wide receivers Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk on the team. Now they could be looking at the possibility of at least one, and perhaps both, playing elsewhere during the 2025 season.
Samuel already seems to have one one foot out the door following a trade request, which the 49ers seem happy to oblige. If they do not trade him, releasing him with a post-June 1 cut designation (which would save more cap space than trading him) seems like a very likely outcome.
Now Aiyuk’s name is back in the rumor mill for a second straight offseason.
General manager John Lynch was asked on Thursday about the reports that teams were calling about Aiyuk, and his answer was certainly interesting.
Instead of outright shutting down any trade speculation, he instead talked about how teams call about good players all the time and they have to do what is best for themselves in terms of getting younger and cheaper.
Here is his full answer, via Grant Cohn:
“That typically happens with really good players. I remember two years ago having similar conversations. You get calls and you always listen to calls. Since Kyle (Shanahan) and I have been here, we’ve been the No. 2 cash-spending team. In the last four years, we’re the fourth-highest 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.
“I think there’s some good that can come out of that. We need to get younger. I think we’re the oldest team in football after trying to make a run last year. I think it’s good to constantly get younger. Our draft class last year was a great move toward that. We’ll have four picks in the top 100. If the comp picks happen like we see it, we’ll have 10 picks overall. We’re excited about adding more youth to the great core of players we already have.”
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