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    • Winners and Losers of Brandon Aiyuk’s Contract Extension
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    Winners and Losers of Brandon Aiyuk’s Contract Extension

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    After all that fuss… Brandon Aiyuk will be with the San Francisco 49ers for a long time to come.

    After months of tense negotiations — including trade talks with other teams — and some mixed messages, the fifth-year starting wide receiver agreed Thursday night to a four-year contract worth up to $120 million with $76 million guaranteed, according to multiple reports. Thus ends one of the NFL’s stranger contractual standoffs in recent years.

    But make no mistake, all this noise and fury will eventually have a major impact in Silicon Valley (and elsewhere). The following parties seem most likely to benefit from Aiyuk’s new arrangement, and perhaps be negatively affected by it:

    WINNERS

    Brandon Aiyuk

    Duh. He’s coming off his best season (75 receptions for 1,342 yards and seven TDs), but he’s never been a first-team All-Pro, Pro Bowler or even the biggest threat in the Niners’ stout offensive attack. Still, Aiyuk becomes the sixth wideout (joining AJ Brown, Tyreek Hill, Justin Jefferson, CeeDee Lamb and Amon-Ra St. Brown) with an extension averaging $30-plus million per year — all of whom he signed this offseason.

    Brock Purdy

    After Mr. Irrelevant’s stunning breakout as a rookie in 2022, he took another big step by developing into a Pro Bowler in 2023 — Aiyuk has been a key factor in Purdy’s growth. In 20 regular-season games played together since Purdy became San Francisco’s QB1 in Week 13 of the 2022 season, the duo has 94 connections for 1,634 yards and nine scores — Aiyuk clearly surpassing fellow WR Deebo Samuel as last season’s primary pass catcher. Now Purdy, who will be eligible for his own financial windfall next year, has his deep threat back as he attempts to take this team back to the Super Bowl while making his own negotiating statement on the field.

    John Lynch

    Whether it’s Aiyuk, Samuel, DE Nick Bosa, TE George Kittle or LB Fred Warner, Lynch, San Francisco’s eighth-year general manager, continues to burnish his reputation by signing his stars — usually in the summer, but often right before the start of Week 1.

    Tee Higgins

    From a statistical and implementation perspective, his resume is fairly similar to Aiyuk’s (269 career catches for 3,931 yards and 25 TDs in four seasons). Higgins has 257 grabs for 3,684 yards and 24 TDs in the same span, despite often serving as the third option in the Cincinnati Bengals’ offense. But with a $21.8 million franchise tag this season, there’s little doubt that deals like Aiyuk’s will make Higgins a very rich man in 2025 – perhaps even richer than his 2020 draft mate – when he almost certainly leaves Cincinnati for the free agent market.

    2024 49ers

    Since the start of the 2019 campaign, San Francisco has reached two Super Bowls – both heartbreaking losses to the Kansas City Chiefs – and four NFC title games. The Niners appear closer than ever to that long-awaited sixth Lombardi Trophy after losing in overtime in Super Bowl 58 six months ago, now that they’ve retained one of their most dangerous weapons in what could be a “Last Dance”-esque situation as they likely lose several key pieces come 2025, when it’s time to pay Purdy.

    Trent Williams

    While Aiyuk has shown up to training camp, if not to practice (to avoid fines), the 49ers’ perennial All-Pro left tackle has held out all summer, attempting to adjust his own salary at a time when the position scale has risen in the wake of new contracts signed by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Tristan Wirfs, the Detroit Lions’ Penei Sewell and the Minnesota Vikings’ Christian Darrisaw. Now that Aiyuk’s off-the-field business is wrapped up, it’s time for Lynch to refocus on carving out one more rabbit hole in his salary cap if he reportedly wants to get his team’s best player back in time for Monday Night Football’s season opener against the New York Jets on Sept. 9.

    LOSERS

    Trent Williams

    He has three years left on a contract that averages just over $23 million per season, which puts Williams, widely regarded as the league’s best tackle, sixth at the position. But he’s 36, needs time to get into football shape, and appears to be on the back burner at a time when so much attention has been focused on Aiyuk. But make no mistake, the 49ers — Purdy and RB Christian McCaffrey, in particular — have shown themselves to be a fundamentally different offense when “Silverback” isn’t in it.

    NFC Candidates 2024

    Just when it seemed as if the conference’s top power might buckle under the weight of its personnel crisis, those issues continued to resolve themselves. Not that the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers can’t still beat the Niners — as they both nearly did in the 2023 postseason — who could also face challenges from the Philadelphia Eagles, Atlanta Falcons, Los Angeles Rams and perhaps others in 2024. But assuming Williams can calm down and S Talanoa Hufanga and LB Dre Greenlaw can return to near-peak form once they return from injuries … well, San Francisco should remain very hard to derail.

    Ja’Marr Chase

    Higgins’ Bengals teammate Chase is also trying to surpass the now-established $30 million-per-year threshold reserved for elite wideouts. Unlike Aiyuk, Lamb and Jefferson, who all had one year remaining on their rookie deals, Chase, the No. 5 overall pick in 2021, has two years remaining and a team owner (Mike Brown) known for taking a hard line on such matters. With Chase’s practice status becoming a daily story in Cincinnati, it now seems the fiscal confrontation to monitor.

    Russell Wilson and Justin Fields

    The current and future QB1s of the Pittsburgh Steelers, respectively — book it in the case of Fields — won’t welcome Aiyuk into a passing attack that could really use a little more juice than WR George Pickens. The Steel City would have been Aiyuk’s destination of choice had a compromise not materialized in the Bay Area, but now the Steelers feel like little more than the leverage point they ultimately were.

    Deebo Samuel

    Now that Aiyuk’s bag is in, Samuel is officially WR2 here—his bank account included, as his extension averages $23.85 million before it expires in the spring of 2026. How does that play out going forward? Could Samuel even be a roster casualty next spring, when it’s time to mint Purdy and given this year’s first round of investment in Ricky Pearsall, also a receiver (albeit a different style than Samuel)? Stay tuned.

    ***

    Follow Nate Davis of USA TODAY Sports on X, formerly Twitter, @ByNateDavis.

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