Before Sunday’s games kicked off, Jay Glazer of Fox Sports reported that the 49ers were about to trade wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk to the Steelers when the receiver came to the facility for a last-ditch effort to work out a new contract.
Per Glazer’s report, 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan ran upstairs to put the trade talks on hold before the team and Aiyuk hammered out the deal he wound up signing over the next couple of hours. After Monday night’s 32-19 win over the Jets, Shanahan confirmed that “most of” the report was on the mark.
“It was that I wanted to make sure he wasn’t traded already,” Shanahan said, via 49ersWebzone.com. “But no, that’s how I kind of reported you guys throughout the whole time. You guys would ask me stuff about it, and I say, ‘Anything could happen.’ There were reports that we almost traded with some teams, and then we didn’t. Some were true, some weren’t, but all options were open.”
Aiyuk was targeted five times on Monday night, including a throw in the end zone that he couldn’t hold onto while diving. He caught two passes for 28 yards.
Shanahan added that “when it was all said and done, I’m glad that we had the patience” to get the deal done, but it seems that any more patience would have led to Aiyuk plying his trade in Pittsburgh.
