The Brandon Aiyuk chapter in San Francisco appears all but closed - at least for the 2025 season. After the 49ers’ Week 15 win, head coach Kyle Shanahan addressed the decision to officially end Aiyuk’s season, and his comments painted a picture of a team that has long since moved on.
“We haven’t seen him in forever,” Shanahan said, in a tone that suggested the writing’s been on the wall for some time. “It’s been pretty simple for me. I haven’t seen him in a month, and same with our team… it’s just something we’ve been used to for a while.”
That’s not the kind of statement you make about a player you expect to plug back into your lineup anytime soon - or ever again.
From the outside, the situation with Aiyuk has been murky for months. The occasional “we’re hopeful” from Shanahan or GM John Lynch never quite rang with conviction.
And now, as the team makes procedural moves to close the book on his season, it’s clear those hopes were more about optics than reality. Internally, the 49ers had already turned the page.
And they’ve had to. Per Over the Cap, San Francisco is now in a position to recoup a portion of Aiyuk’s signing bonus and option money - a move that signals a deeper fracture between player and team. The decision to pursue that kind of financial recourse doesn’t happen unless the relationship has reached the point of no return.
Shanahan, for his part, didn’t shy away from the emotional side of the situation. He admitted he had hoped Aiyuk would return at some point this year. But hope doesn’t win football games - and Shanahan made it clear that hope had faded long ago.
“I really have been hoping he would come back all year,” he said. “But not one point was I really planning on it… I realized early on it wasn’t going to come for a while, and there was nothing that made me sit there and think it was happening soon.”
That mindset has clearly permeated the locker room, too. The 49ers haven’t looked like a team waiting on a savior to return.
They’ve leaned into the weapons they do have - and it’s worked. Rookie Ricky Pearsall has stepped up in a big way, while George Kittle continues to be a steady force in both the passing game and as a blocker.
The offense has adjusted, adapted, and kept humming without Aiyuk.
That’s not to say the 49ers wouldn’t have welcomed Aiyuk’s talent back into the fold. Shanahan called him the kind of player you’d “love to have out there.” But the reality is, they’ve learned to live - and win - without him.
Whether this is the final chapter of Aiyuk’s time in San Francisco remains to be seen. But for now, the 49ers are locked in on a playoff push, and Aiyuk is no longer part of that equation. If there’s more to this story, it’ll have to wait until the offseason.