WR Brandon Aiyuk Requests a Trade

[Forge]

20 minutes ago, struby3 said:

You have no proof that this has ever happened. In fact, agents have let players sign terrible contracts with SF quite often. SF is known for its team-friendly contracts with potential outs and little guaranteed money. If anything, agents have caught on and are trying to be more firm with SF now.

I mean, kittle's initial contract offer was referred to as the Valentine's Day massacre. Deebo and Aiyuk were seen on tape about the contract process. Bosa admitted it was stressful and probably hurt his season 

 the niners got a team friendly deal from kaep that one time and they've been living on that rep ever since.

Like what team friendly deals are we talking about? Certainly none of the star deals. So what are we winning here? Warner's front end deal was 70% guaranteed. Kittle's contract set a record for aav percent of the cap and it took the guarantees like 4 years to get passed by anyone and it's been passed by one dude. Bosa straight up took them to the cleaners 

49ers are consistently having issues getting these deals done with a myriad of agents and players. Maybe this is a team issue?

[typecast]

17 minutes ago, John232 said:

Lot of cooper and a second noise 

Maiocco showing his value to the organization!

[Forge]

29 minutes ago, struby3 said:

Well, I can tell you that he is highly respected by his peers. I know Matt Ploenzke, as he is actually trained in biostats and we used to share a close collaborator. He finished up his PhD from Harvard in 2020 and won the Big Data Bowl in the same year. Needless to say, he had offers from like a dozen teams to join their analytics staff and he chose to move cross country to SF and take a pay cut in large part due to the opportunity to work under Marathe. He said it was a no-brainer. Honestly, Marathe should be working for a venture capital or investment firm. He is overqualified to be working in an NFL front office. Dude teaches analytics classes at Stanford. Sure, none of that necessarily translates to a successful career in an NFL front office, but his track record speaks for itself. Few NFL teams have maneuvered the cap better than SF in the last 20ish years and they have been one of the more successful teams on the field during the same time.

Oh, don't get it twisted. I'm sure he's brilliant in that regard and I totally believe he's well respected. Doesn't mean he should be negotiating contracts. 

And again, this could easily be a jed issue more so than a paraag issue. 

Bottom line is the way they handle these contracts has not been great. If you want to defend paraag on that for whatever reason, that's cool. I have no idea how you think the way these things played out has been good though

[struby3]

2 minutes ago, Forge said:

I mean, kittle's initial contract offer was referred to as the Valentine's Day massacre. Deebo and Aiyuk were seen on tape about the contract process. Bosa admitted it was stressful and probably hurt his season 

 the niners got a team friendly deal from kaep that one time and they've been living on that rep ever since.

Like what team friendly deals are we talking about? Certainly none of the star deals. So what are we winning here? Warner's front end deal was 70% guaranteed. Kittle's contract set a record for aav percent of the cap and it took the guarantees like 4 years to get passed by anyone and it's been passed by one dude. Bosa straight up took them to the cleaners 

49ers are consistently having issues getting these deals done with a myriad of agents and players. Maybe this is a team issue?

Literally none of those were bad deals and all of those guys would have made more on the open market. Tremaine Edmunds' contract is similar to Warner's. David Freaking Njoku's contract is similar to Kittle's.

How did Bosa take them to the cleaners? He basically signed a 4 year, $120M-ish deal. Brian Burns and Joshua Allen have similar AAVs if you compare their likely outs. I know who I would have rather have out of those three.

In reality, giving Aiyuk $28M per year would be a worse contract than Warner's, Kittle's, or Bosa's, unless it is structured smartly. With that said, I'm fine with him earning that AAV, since SF has set themselves up nicely to absorb it.

Additionally, I'd say that Deebo, Dre, Trent, and McCaffrey could have all made more money on the open market. I mean, there is a reason that Trent is unhappy with his current contract. He knows he is worth more than he is being paid. Mooney's contract was a steal too. If anything, I don't love Hargrave's contract, but I think SF has won the vast majority of its large contracts recently. 

[Forge]

Okay, got to stretch and warm up a little. I think this may be a long one. 

6 hours ago, struby3 said:

Literally none of those were bad deals and all of those guys would have made more on the open market.

Let me be clear here, because there is a very important distinction. I do not think the deals bad. The process for getting these deals done, whatever it may be, is bad.

The deals are market deals where the player does well. I think the process is bad because the niners aren't "winning" these deals and just cratering to the player market anyway. They aren't getting one over on the players.  They are impacting the team every single year with the hold ins and then the player has gone out and laid an egg every time. Like just go get this crap done early and stop letting it fester until training camp and damn near the start of the season. 

Again, I don't know how you're happy with the process when it consistently results in this. Most other teams get through their contracts without this happening. Why can't the niners? Every now and again, if this happened, I would understand. Especially on a contract like Bosa. I mean, even the Steelers couldn't get TJ Watt done in time. That happens. But every single time this rolls into the season with the big name guys and its like dude, just get it done. 

 

6 hours ago, struby3 said:

Tremaine Edmunds' contract is similar to Warner's. David Freaking Njoku's contract is similar to Kittle's.

Edmunds signed in 2023, two years after Warner as an unrestricted free agent and David Njoku signed 2 years after Kittle, I think. 

If the we are going to use the contracts that come multiple years after them as a basis for determining whether the deal is good or not, thats even less of a reason not to just give Aiyuk 29. I mean, in 3 years when the cap is 300 million and the top of the receiver market is 40 million, 29 is going to be an absolute bargain. 

Warner's aav % of cap was 10.44. Edmunds' was 8.01% (Warner signing in 21 skews that a bit, more on that later). Now, their guaranteed money favored Edmunds, I'll grant you that. Though that may have been a little more on the surface.  Warner had a 3.6M void buy out that had to be paid if they were voiding the unguaranteed portion of his deals (25-26).  If they didn't go that route, they were basically locking up another 22 million to Warner, which makes his money far higher than edmunds. It was a very unique structure, I will say that. I don't know if I've seen them do that again, to be honest. 

Roquan rest the market two years after warner and barely topped his total value and it we include the additional 22 on Warner didn't top his guarantees (Warner's original deal was technically 3 years with the void year options, but I'm going to be honest, I'm a little confused on how the full structure actually worked and the restructures make it difficult to sift through)

Njoku is the same. The deal was 2 years later and he came in 12 million under Kittle's guaranteed total (40M to 28). Kittle ostensibly got 4 years guaranteed (if you're including the final year of his rookie deal. That's another factor with this comparison: kittle signed an extension that was added on top of the last year of his rookie deal and njoku did not. Makes it wonky looking) compared to Njoku's 3 . And technically, the browns could have gotten away from njoku after two years pretty easily if they did it before his 24 guarantee vested and hadn't restructured his 23, 24, and 25 contract years. So it's really 3 years guaranteed for kittle (or 4, depending on how you feel to about the last rookie deal year) versus the two for njoku. 

The expectation should be that contracts "age" well because the cap goes up. That goes to players. That's why every few years we get some crazy pay jumps for a position that hasn't had someone set the market for a hot minute. Kittle still being #3 in aav and #2 in total guaranteed for a contract that is 4 years old is kind of wild, to be honest. It's also still the biggest total value, but obviously that's propped by  unguaranteed cash. But also an indication of how strong that contract was for him as a player. 

6 hours ago, struby3 said:

How did Bosa take them to the cleaners? He basically signed a 4 year, $120M-ish deal. Brian Burns and Joshua Allen have similar AAVs if you compare their likely outs. I know who I would have rather have out of those three.

 

 Yes, that is his cash output over 4 years, which is actually crazy good. Burns and Allen-Hines, on a cap that jumped 30 million  got roughly 30% less guaranteed money. They both got 3 years guaranteed versus 4 and Bosa has superior 3 year cash flow. How they did in these contracts is not comparable for the player benefit. 

I know what you're getting at with the AAV though, and as a fan I'm right there with you. But in terms of NFL contract negotiations, I think teams generally want to avoid guarantees and players want more of them. If not for the 2021 covid year (which led to a lot of players getting weirdly high percentage cap deals for one year - Braden Smith is still second for interior lineman in that regard, Dallas Goedert tops for tight ends, Trent for tackles, Ragnow for centers, Lattimore for corners, Daniel Carlson second for kickers, Michael Dickson first for punters), he would have demolished the aav percenatage by like 3% (Watt tops the list for his 2021 deal). Bosa basically hit top of the market and historical benchmarks across the board for cash flow rates.  Even spotrac indicated that his deal would be the new superstar benchmark. 

And again, the niners should be happy with the deal. We should as well. That's not my problem. His deal was kind of just what was expected. 

6 hours ago, struby3 said:

In reality, giving Aiyuk $28M per year would be a worse contract than Warner's, Kittle's, or Bosa's, unless it is structured smartly. With that said, I'm fine with him earning that AAV, since SF has set themselves up nicely to absorb it.

See, I think this is an opinion on the player more so than the contract, and that's fine. I mean, his market is his market and it's clearly been shown that teams will pay it. Like I said, in 3 years the cap will be about 300 million. Top of the receiver market should be about 40 million a year when Nabers and Harrison hit it (assuming a top of the market aav % of 13% which would be 3rd across receivers).

Then you have to decide on if he's worth it. So this is mostly a player eval to me. But I mentioned this before, but his contact ask isn't anything crazy. 28 million? That's less aav on the cap then deebo got and I like Aiyuk more than I did Deebo 2 years ago. But obviously not everyone feels that way. 

The market is locked with receivers right now that I think we can just expect something like 29 million with 80 fully guaranteed. 

6 hours ago, struby3 said:

Additionally, I'd say that Deebo, Dre, Trent, and McCaffrey could have all made more money on the open market. I mean, there is a reason that Trent is unhappy with his current contract. He knows he is worth more than he is being paid. 

Trent did hit the open market. He famously had to call kyle because we were mucking around on an extension and talks had stalled. He called Kyle tell him to go talk to some people and hurry it up or he was going to sign with the chiefs. So Trent's contract process isn't one to hang banners on either lol 

The rest of them? Maybe. I mean, CMC has another two years to go on his original deal, so hitting the market wasn't really an option for him. He's 28 years old which is already old for a running back. His time to capitalize was to hold out now and get money. 

Deebo likely would have done better on the market, at least in some capacity. But the trade off there is that he's putting his body at risk well below market. You're trading off an open market for security. He was also coming off a season he was unlikely to replicate so the time to strike was then. Especially with his injury history. This isn't super altruistic behavior on their part and the discount that they give is probably overstated. Players are better about knowing their market and knowing their options. They still set new benchmarks across the league when re-signing 

Now Dre is a great example of things I'd to do more of. But its important to remember, we bought the dip on Dre big time. There were people who didn't think he was as good as Azeez at that point. When he signed that deal, he wasn't who he is now. He was coming off an injury riddled season where he only played like 2 games and Azeez had been really good.  The year before that he had also missed time. But you believe in the talent and you take your chances. This is how you get great deals, though there is risk involved. Truthfully, that was a good deal for Dre at the time too because there was still a lot of unknown. 

What we did with Dre is what we should be doing with DMO now (or trying to do - it may be too late). It's what we should have done with Aiyuk last year. We should have put 22 million a year in front of him after year 3 and a 1000 yard season and bet on him. The talent was always clear. 

6 hours ago, struby3 said:

Mooney's contract was a steal too. If anything, I don't love Hargrave's contract, but I think SF has won the vast majority of its large contracts recently. 

These are ufa deals, so you just have to consider them their own thing. We got a steal on Mooney's contract because he started playing even better than he was when we signed him. That's not typical for unrestricted free agents if we are being honest. Its not likely that we got him at a discount when the deal was signed....we likely had the best deal out there for him (either via money or structure) given that it was free agency.  But Ward was definitely a great pull by our pro scouts though as a guy to target. 

 

***Edit***

Forgot about Darius Leonard's deal that was signed just after Warner's in 21. That deal was better for Leonard than Warner's was for him. Not surprising given he signed after. He got more total and more guaranteed up front, but less when accounting for Warner's void year option pick up, but again, this is such a weird thing.

Honestly, I like the structure of the void year options on Warner, that's good stuff. This is definitely the best deal paraag has done. He got it in under Leonard (which is a big deal and a point of complaint on other players) and the void buy back is a really cool tool that favored the team (probably why is not used anymore). The contract is still market rate of course, so Warner ultimately did fine as well, but it would have been on a smaller deal (he still would have been the highest paid linebacker in history with the second most guarantees for a linebacker in history)

 

[straighthate]

3 hours ago, Forge said:

Okay, got to stretch and warm up a little. I think this may be a long one. 

Let me be clear here, because there is a very important distinction. I do not think the deals bad. The process for getting these deals done, whatever it may be, is bad.

 

The deals are market deals where the player does well. I think the process is bad because the niners aren't "winning" these deals and just cratering to the player market anyway. They aren't getting one over on the players. They are impacting the team every single year with the hold ins and then the player has gone out and laid an egg every time. Like just go get this crap done early and stop letting it fester until training camp and damn near the start of the season. 

 

Again, I don't know how you're happy with the process when it consistently results in this. Most other teams get through their contracts without this happening. Why can't the niners? Every now and again, if this happened, I would understand. Especially on a contract like Bosa. I mean, even the Steelers couldn't get TJ Watt done in time. That happens. But every single time this rolls into the season with the big name guys and its like dude, just get it done. 

Edmunds signed in 2023, two years after Warner as an unrestricted free agent and David Njoku signed 2 years after Kittle, I think. 

 

If the we are going to use the contracts that come multiple years after them as a basis for determining whether the deal is good or not, thats even less of a reason not to just give Aiyuk 29. I mean, in 3 years when the cap is 300 million and the top of the receiver market is 40 million, 29 is going to be an absolute bargain. 

 

Warner's aav % of cap was 10.44. Edmunds' was 8.01% (Warner signing in 21 skews that a bit, more on that later). Now, their guaranteed money favored Edmunds, I'll grant you that. Though that may have been a little more on the surface. Warner had a 3.6M void buy out that had to be paid if they were voiding the unguaranteed portion of his deals (25-26). If they didn't go that route, they were basically locking up another 22 million to Warner, which makes his money far higher than edmunds. It was a very unique structure, I will say that. I don't know if I've seen them do that again, to be honest. 

 

Roquan rest the market two years after warner and barely topped his total value and it we include the additional 22 on Warner didn't top his guarantees (Warner's original deal was technically 3 years with the void year options, but I'm going to be honest, I'm a little confused on how the full structure actually worked and the restructures make it difficult to sift through)

 

Njoku is the same. The deal was 2 years later and he came in 12 million under Kittle's guaranteed total (40M to 28). Kittle ostensibly got 4 years guaranteed (if you're including the final year of his rookie deal. That's another factor with this comparison: kittle signed an extension that was added on top of the last year of his rookie deal and njoku did not. Makes it wonky looking) compared to Njoku's 3 . And technically, the browns could have gotten away from njoku after two years pretty easily if they did it before his 24 guarantee vested and hadn't restructured his 23, 24, and 25 contract years. So it's really 3 years guaranteed for kittle versus the two for njoku

 

The expectation should be that contracts "age" well because the cap goes up. That goes to players. That's why every few years we get some crazy pay jumps for a position that hasn't had someone set the market for a hot minute. Kittle still being #3 in aav and #2 in total guaranteed for a contract that is 4 years old is kind of wild, to be honest. It's also still the biggest total value, but obviously that's propped by unguaranteed cash. But also an indication of how strong that contract was for him as a player. 

Yes, that is his cash output over 4 years, which is actually crazy good. Burns and Allen-Hines, on a cap that jumped 30 million got roughly 30% less guaranteed money. They both got 3 years guaranteed versus 4 and Bosa has superior 3 year cash flow. How they did in these contracts is not comparable for the player benefit. 

 

I know what you're getting at with the AAV though, and as a fan I'm right there with you. But in terms of NFL contract negotiations, I think teams generally want to avoid guarantees and players want more of them. If not for the 2021 covid strike (which led to a lot of players getting weird high percentage cap deals for one year - Braden Smith is still second for interior lineman in that regard, Dallas Goedert tops for tight ends, Trent for tackles, Ragnow for centers, Lattimore for corners, Daniel Carlson second for kickers, Michael Dickson first for punters), he would have demolished the aav percenatage by like 3% (Watt tops the list for his 2021 deal). Bosa basically hit top of the market and historical benchmarks across the board for cash flow rates. Even spotrac indicated that his deal would be the new superstar benchmark. 

 

And again, the niners should be happy with the deal. We should as well. That's not my problem. His deal was kind of just what was expected. 

See, I think this is an opinion on the player more so than the contract, and that's fine. I mean, his market is his market and it's clearly been shown that teams will pay it. Like I said, in 3 years the cap will be about 300 million. Top of the receiver market should be about 40 million a year when Nabers and Harrison hit it (assuming a top of the market aav % of 13% which would be 3rd across receivers).

 

Then you have to decide on if he's worth it. So this is mostly a player eval to me. But I mentioned this before, but his contact ask isn't anything crazy. 28 million? That's less aav on the cap then deebo got and I like Aiyuk more than I did Deebo 2 years ago. But obviously not everyone feels that way. 

 

The market is locked with receivers right now that I think we can just expect something like 29 million with 80 fully guaranteed

Trent did hit the open market. He famously had to call kyle because we were mucking around on an extension and talks had stalled. He called Kyle tell him to go talk to some people and hurry it up or he was going to sign with the chiefs. So Trent's contract process isn't one to hang banners on either lol 

 

The rest of them? Maybe. I mean, CMC has another two years to go on his original deal, so hitting the market wasn't really an option for him. He's 28 years old which is already old for a running back. His time to capitalize was to hold out now and get money. 

 

Deebo likely would have done better on the market, at least in some capacity. But the trade off there is that he's putting his body at risk well below market. You're trading off an open market for security. He was also coming off a season he was unlikely to replicate so the time to strike was then. Especially with his injury history. This isn't super altruistic behavior on their part and the discount that they give is probably overstated. Players are better about knowing their market and knowing their options. They still set new benchmarks across the league when re-signing 

 

Now Dre is a great example of things I'd to do more of. But its important to remember, we bought the dip on Dre big time. There were people who didn't think he was as good as Azeez at that point. When he signed that deal, he wasn't who he is now. He was coming off an injury riddled season where he only played like 2 games and Azeez had been really good. The year before that he had also missed time. But you believe in the talent and you take your chances. This is how you get great deals, though there is risk involved. Truthfully, that was a good deal for Dre at the time too because there was still a lot of unknown. 

 

What we did with Dre is what we should be doing with DMO now (or trying to do - it may be too late). It's what we should have done with Aiyuk last year. We should have put 22 million a year in front of him after year 3 and a 1000 yard season and bet on him. The talent was always clear. 

These are ufa deals, so you just have to consider them their own thing. We got a steal on Mooney's contract because he started playing even better than he was when we signed him. That's not typical for unrestricted free agents if we are being honest. Its not likely that we got him at a discount when the deal was signed....we likely had the best deal out there for him (either via money or structure) given that it was free agency. But Ward was definitely a great pull by our pro scouts though as a guy to target. 

 

 

 

***Edit***

 

Forgot about Darius Leonard's deal that was signed just after Warner's in 21. That deal was better for Leonard than Warner's was for him. Not surprising given he signed after. He got more total and more guaranteed up front, but less when accounting for Warner's void year option pick up, but again, this is such a weird thing.

 

Honestly, I like the structure of the void year options on Warner, that's good stuff. This is definitely the best deal paraag has done. He got it in under Leonard (which is a big deal and a point of complaint on other players) and the void buy back is a really cool tool that favored the team (probably why is not used anymore). The contract is still market rate of course, so Warner ultimately did fine as well, but it would have been on a smaller deal (he still would have been the highest paid linebacker in history with the second most guarantees for a linebacker in history)

This post might be excessive. I gotta go to bed and read chapters 3 and 4 tomorrow. 

[J-ALL-DAY]

13 hours ago, struby3 said:

Do you believe eveything you read on Twitter?

This is coming from multiple reporters. What are you talking about just believing everything read on twitter? Mike Garaffolo reported this on NFL Network and Aiyuk himself said this on The Pivot. Kawakami also stated this last week. 

[J-ALL-DAY]

I think a three year offer here may be more enticing to Aiyuk's team to allow him to get one more big contract before he hits the age of 30. 

3 years 85M, with 50M guaranteed. Something like that. 

[GW21]

What in the dickens is going on in here? 
 

 

[Forge]

18 minutes ago, GW21 said:

What in the dickens is going on in here? 
 

 

I dunno, but kind of don't like that Aiyuk didn't travel with the team. Hope it's an excuses absence to work on the contract lol

Would have felt better about him staying if traveled 

[typecast]

Steelers back to being the most likely destination until tomorrow! Back to watching LeDunkedOn

[Forge]

11 minutes ago, typecast said:

Steelers back to being the most likely destination until tomorrow! Back to watching LeDunkedOn

I don't believe for a second that Pittsburgh has a "strong" trade offer on the table. 

[N4L]

2 minutes ago, Forge said:

I don't believe for a second that Pittsburgh has a "strong" trade offer on the table. 

The more I think about it, the more likely I think it is that Aiyuk misses at least one game. Steelers arent upping their offer, we arent upping our offer, and Aiyuk wont go anywhere else. 

So basically, when you said 2 weeks, you meant the first two weeks of the season, right? 

[Forge]

13 minutes ago, N4L said:

The more I think about it, the more likely I think it is that Aiyuk misses at least one game. Steelers arent upping their offer, we arent upping our offer, and Aiyuk wont go anywhere else. 

So basically, when you said 2 weeks, you meant the first two weeks of the season, right? 

If he misses a game, two weeks into the season is definitely what I meant 😂 

[49ers Finest]

Read a report that seemed legit that Browns offered their 2nd 5th and Amari Cooper and we had agreed on compensation being sufficient, but Aiyuk didnt want to go there. And without an extension, theyre not giving all that up. 

 

Weird bc he said no to Patriots bc theyre qb situation, but wants Steelers whos qb situation I would say is worse than the Browns.