George Kittle didn’t exactly sidestep the Brandon Aiyuk mess when NBC Sports’ Chris Simms brought it up this week. He leaned into the 49ers’ side of it, and he did it in a way that made his stance pretty clear.
Simms opened by calling Aiyuk one of the “bad apples” and asked whether the locker room was surprised by the way the wideout has been acting, including the Instagram posts that have piled up since June 1. Kittle said the noise has mostly unfolded while the team was away for the summer.
“A majority of this has come during the summer break,” Kittle said. “I literally got back to the building yesterday, and I have not seen anybody or heard anybody talk about it.
In general, I feel like I know basically everything that has happened and gone on, and I can't share all of that because it's not my business to share or tell, but I just want to let you know that I feel like the 49ers have done a very good job throughout the entire process and have tried. Kyle has tried, John has tried, teammates have tried, and this is where we are.
I think the organization itself has done a really good job.
"Like I said, I know plenty of things, and I don't ever want to single out a player. I don't ever want to point a finger at anybody, but I've been here for 10 years, and I've been treated with nothing but respect and love my entire career.
I feel like I've done it the right way as long as I can. Contract negotiations are always hard for anybody, and you just try your best to not be sensitive about it.
Richard Sherman gave me advice back in the day when I was going through my first contract negotiation, and it was, 'Contracts are like braces. They hurt, and they suck the entire time, and then once you get them off and you get paid, you don't even remember having them.'
That's the mindset you have to have.
"If you get offended by something and you hold onto it, that's kind of on you because everybody goes through contract negotiations and they're all difficult."
Kittle’s point was met with agreement from Simms, who replied, “Well said,” before adding, “And I, like you, know some things too there and would second your sentiments that the 49ers have handled things quite fine in my eyes.”
That’s where the public conversation stood. But the broader picture around Aiyuk has been far messier.
Just a few days earlier, Aiyuk took a shot at Christian McCaffrey, suggesting in an Instagram post that McCaffrey fumbled away the Super Bowl two years ago. Since June 1, Aiyuk has been on what amounts to a daily online tirade against the 49ers, taunting the team and acting as though he’s already with the Washington Commanders even though he’s still on the 49ers.
From the outside, Kittle’s defense of the organization is predictable. Simms is Shanahan’s best friend, so he’s not exactly a neutral observer either.
Kittle, meanwhile, is a 49ers veteran who’s been paid by the team for 10 years. Aiyuk is the player in the middle of the storm, and he’s the one taking the public heat.
Still, there’s a real argument that the 49ers helped create this situation. Two years ago, they could have locked Aiyuk in at $27 million per season if they had moved early in the offseason.
They didn’t. The Lions then shifted the market by giving Amon-Ra St.
Brown $30 million per season.
At that point, the 49ers also had the option to trade Aiyuk for a second-round pick. They passed. Instead, they eventually gave him $30 million per season, even though they didn’t like him, and then quickly regretted it.
The next step was another attempt to move him while he was injured, before he could even walk. No team wanted to take on that contract, so the 49ers eventually found a way out when Aiyuk violated a technicality by skipping a team-mandated rehab check-in a few days before camp began.
Now, the 49ers are still holding onto Aiyuk without any clear plan, while preparing to replace him with Mike Evans, who will turn 33 in August. Aiyuk is 28. And if he ends up with the Commanders and outperforms Evans this season, the 49ers will be left looking foolish.
So while Kittle said the 49ers have “done a very good job” through the whole process, that’s not the read here. The better move, it seems, would have been to trade Aiyuk for the second-round pick when they had the chance.
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