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Nick Wagoner, ESPN Staff Writer
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — After an offseason of contract negotiations that have yet to yield a lucrative extension, San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk has officially requested a trade, according to league sources.
Sources told ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Tuesday that other teams that have reached out to the 49ers have been told the team has no intention of trading him.
Aiyuk’s request comes a week before veterans are slated to report to Niners training camp and about three weeks after Aiyuk and the Niners met in Santa Clara to discuss the situation. NFL Network first reported the trade request.
With one year remaining on his rookie contract, Aiyuk has been seeking a big-money extension in line with those of other wideouts who have earned deals this offseason, such as the Philadelphia Eagles‘ A.J. Brown, Detroit Lions‘ Amon-Ra St. Brown, Eagles’ DeVonta Smith and Miami Dolphins‘ Jaylen Waddle.
Aiyuk, 26, is set to make $14.124 million in 2024, the fifth and final year of his rookie contract.
At various points this offseason, Aiyuk has tried to apply pressure to the Niners to get a deal done sooner than their usual late-summer timeline. He has used social media to voice his displeasure and even posted a video to TikTok of himself telling former Arizona State teammate and current Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels on FaceTime that the Niners “don’t want me back.”
But Aiyuk had stopped short of requesting a trade until Tuesday. A league source told ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler that Aiyuk “want[s] to be traded or paid. San Fran doesn’t want to pay him [relative to market value] or trade him.”
Despite the request, San Francisco’s position on Aiyuk hasn’t changed. The Niners have maintained all along that they want to pay Aiyuk and keep him around for the long term. That has been made more difficult by the rising cost of receivers based on other deals that have been signed this offseason.
Aiyuk’s trade request also doesn’t guarantee he will be dealt. In fact, the Niners have recent precedent declining to grant a trade request to a receiver wanting a big-money deal and eventually signing him.
Niners wideout Deebo Samuel Sr. requested a trade in the 2022 offseason, and although the Niners listened to offers at that year’s NFL draft, they held on to Samuel and signed him to a three-year deal worth up to $73.5 million on July 31, 2022. Former kicker Robbie Gould also requested a trade from the Niners in April 2019 but eventually signed a four-year extension on July 15, 2019.
Aiyuk is coming off a breakout season in which he posted 75 catches for 1,342 yards and seven touchdowns on his way to a second-team All-Pro nod.
If Aiyuk doesn’t sign a new deal or get traded before the start of training camp, he is expected to avoid participating until his contract situation is resolved. He did not participate in the team’s mandatory minicamp, incurring fines in excess of $101,000 for missing it.
Under coach Kyle Shanahan and general manager John Lynch, the Niners have been able to sign most of their stars to extensions before they hit free agency, although those players — Samuel, tight end George Kittle, linebacker Fred Warner and end Nick Bosa — have had to wait until late July and beyond for such deals to get done.
In other 49ers receiver news Tuesday, rookie wideout Ricky Pearsall was placed on the active/non-football injury list as Niners rookies reported for training camp. Pearsall, the No. 31 overall pick in April’s NFL draft, practiced with a blue no-contact jersey in the spring. At the time, Shanahan said Pearsall was dealing with “a little soreness” but did not disclose specifics of the injury.
