Originally posted by frenchmov:
That's pretty wild if true. Why have an agent at all? Why are you paying the agent?
Aiyuk doesn't seem to be operating in the real world on many fronts and that is a big part of why we are at this point. Sucks for Aiyuk and sucks for us. No winners in this situation
Not all players are hands off passing full control to the agent. Players don't always take their agents advice. Sometimes it works out. Sometimes it doesn't. If Williams had a problem with Aiyuk's decision, he would have dropped him as a client. Aiyuk has done some dumb stuff, but he's not the only one.
Originally posted by 49AllTheTime:
Originally posted by Typecast:
Originally posted by 49AllTheTime:
I doubt the 49ers are sitting around hoping for a trade, they've moved on
They are definitely trying to trade him. They've even leaked that they can't get a hold of him to see if he could help them get a draft pick by renegotiating his contract.
there's no way they are all huddled around every day trying to trade this guy. There's no need unless another team calls.
Who said they are working to trade him every day? They are trying to trade him. They've admitted as much.
Originally posted by frenchmov:
The "Greenlaw didn't want to be Pippen to Warner's Jordan" was free agency PR spin. Same with the "49ers outbid the Broncos". He really didn't want to leave SF but Paraag low-balled him and pushed him away. Lynch publicly talked about "going through the process" and being reactive to the market other teams set for him. FWIW, Krueger said he heard the initial offer Greenlaw got from the 49ers was 1-year $5M. Barrows didn't confirm the number but reported league sources claiming the number was very low.
Kittle talked about this at some point that the opening offer in his first contract extension was crazy low, and that it was a dog fight to get the $$ but he said he let his agent deal with it. Paraag is a big time low baller in every contract I'm sure.
Yea, the Kittle extension was the start of Paraag getting bullied by Kyle and Lynch to hand out contracts he didn't want to hand out. Kittle's agent Jack Bechta had been pressing the 49ers to enter into negotiations once Kittle became extension eligible in 2019. The 49ers had zero interest in doing that. Bechta pressed Lynch demanding the address Kittle's extension following the 2019 regular season. Lynch made a handshake agreement with Bechta that they would do that. After an 8-0 start by the team, Lynch went to Bechta and told them that getting into negotiations right after the regular season would mess up the vibes and that the team didn't want to create any distractions. They needed more time. Bechta saw this as another bad sign, wasn't happy, and emphasized that the team needed to make this a priority once the playoffs were over. The 49ers would end up losing in the Super Bowl on Feb 2nd, 2020.
On Valentine's Day (Feb 14, 2020), Paraag sent a message to Bechta telling him to check his email and they could talk over the offer on Monday. That was Friday evening and Bechta knew things that get sent out on Friday after business hours is almost always bad news. The next day, Bechta got to work and checked the email. It was a long email, another bad sign that what was coming was going to be bad. The offer by the 49ers would be a market-resetting TE contract, barely passing Gronkowski's 9M AAV that had been signed in 2012. The years on the contract wasn't where they wanted. The guarantees on the contract wasn't where they wanted. The structure of the payouts was team-friendly with 4/1 vesting guarantees that pressed the team into deciding whether to cut/trade him yearly. The email had tons of charts and paragraphs rationalizing the 49ers position, ultimately making the case that the TE market is what it is and they were governed by working around the long-depressed TE market. Bechta was shocked by the teams approach and called the process 'The Valentine's Day Massacre'. That same afternoon, Bechta would send a text message to both Paraag and Lynch expressing his frustration with what they had sent. On Monday, Bechta would hop on a call with Paraag. Bechta made it clear the original offer was a non-starter, that he wasn't even going to show it to Kittle to protect the team, and to get back to them when they were serious.
The two sides would have a few calls where the team would constantly point to their original offer, bring it back to him being a TE, and what the TE market was. Paraag thought Bechta wasn't locked into who his client was. Bechta himself was a former TE and was well-versed in the advanced metrics that had been proliferating the sport via PFF and other tools. So when Paraag would say he's a TE, Bechta would point out his versatility at the X, Y, Z, F. Inside-zone block. Outside-zone block. Power. He did it all and the numbers backed it up. Eventually Bechta made it clear the numbers were what they were, that the team saw Kittle every day, and knew who he is. If they wanted to go down the path of franchise tagging him twice, they were prepared and it wasn't going to work out in their favor. He also made it clear Kittle wasn't taking a team-friendly deal. It was his first contract extension and that if the team was looking for help, they should seek it elsewhere. That ended up spooking Paraag who would ghost Bechta during the spring. The negotiation would pick back up in the summer and Kittle got pretty much what Becht had presented to Kittle before the negotiation started. 75M/5 extension (25M eAAV). 53% guaranteed that wasn't completely tied to 4/1 same year guarantees.
Tying this back to Aiyuk, several negotiations didn't go Paraag's way after. Compound that with Shanahan making the boss call to extend Trent and Lynch having to clean up the Bosa situation. Paraag was dead set in trying to get a win with the Aiyuk extension. Then mid-negotiation with Aiyuk, CMC would hold out for a few days and Paraag was forced to cave to him. Then Trent held out of training camp and preseason over contract issues.
Originally posted by hummbabybear_1:
Originally posted by frenchmov:
I would be absolutely shocked if we got anything. I'm expecting him to just be cut Sept 1
Yeah, they just want Washington to not have the benefit of Aiyuk having a full training camp to get ready for the season. That is why Aiyuk is posting garbage so that Lynch and Shanahan have to keep fielding questions. At the end of the day it does make them all look silly for extending this drama.
Aiyuk isn't going to be a starting WR on day 1 for his next team whether he's traded today or on roster cutdown day. He'll be a rotational depth guy and will have an opportunity to prove himself with his new club on a team friendly cheap contract. And yea, he absolutely should be posting and pressing the 49ers. I want to see him invite the press when he shows up to the facility to report. This is a mess the team had its hand in creating.
Originally posted by pdc20:
There's drama only in Aiyuk's mind. The Niners are fine.
And the people defending him, you can stop already.
The players in the locker room are probably laughing at how dumb Aiyuk is.
You think that Warner who exploded his ankle and fight to come back for the PO is gonna be team Aiyuk?
Kittle has come out and defended Aiyuk and went out of his way to not criticize the team. I think Warner is smart enough to understand the dynamics between Aiyuk and the team, is capable of empathizing with Aiyuk's mental state post-surgery, and realize how out-of-line it was for the team to quit on him at that time. So no, I'm not gonna stop.