The first day of the NFL league year is March 11, and Adam Schefter thinks the 49ers won’t waste any time moving on from wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk.
“He’ll be released on the first day of the league year, I think,” Schefter said, without any delay on the answer during his appearance on the Pardon My Take podcast.
This falls in line with John Lynch’s comments earlier this week on the 49ers’ plans for Aiyuk. Well, it’s a bit more specific than Lynch’s answer.
“I think nothing will happen until the new
league year starts,” Lynch said when asked about the contract during his press conference at the 2026 NFL Combine. “And then when it happens, kind of semantics, but that’s when something could happen there.”
There was some speculation that Aiyuk could still be traded, but there wasn’t much to suggest league interest in Aiyuk or his contract. The bigger issue of an Aiyuk trade, as the 49ers have learned, is that when the 49ers last tried to trade their wide receiver, Aiyuk refused to go to any of the teams making offers to the 49ers.
We live in a different world now. Since those trade proposals and the eventual extension, Aiyuk suffered a devastating knee injury in 2024 and did not see the field in the 2025 season.
“They had so many trade conversations with so many teams,” Schefter said. “And I think they’ve probably gone back to those teams. But I think the math is different. The situation is different. The way he behaved this year with some of the social stuff is different. Everything is different.”
Aiyuk tore his ACL, MCL, and meniscus. The final two years of his deal, 2027 and 2028, are slated for base salaries of an estimated $27 million and $29 million, respectively (Note: this does not account for voided guarantees). That alone, combined with the injury, makes the trade a very risky option for a team. Aiyuk’s social media usage doesn’t help either.
“I think teams are curious,” Schefter continued. “And before they would do anything, they want to have to check out his knee.”
That won’t happen in a week. It’s widely believed that Aiyuk is gone from the 49ers. We’ve known the 49ers and Aiyuk were headed for a divorce once the guarantees got voided during the season. The way they’ll end this is now more and more apparent: a release the moment the 49ers can.
There are fewer than two weeks for this chapter to close.
