Thursday Patriots Notebook 7/18: News and Notes
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The Brandon Aiyuk discussion is obviously one that has people still talking here in New England, but it’s also interesting to see that out in San Francisco, not everyone would apparently be upset if Aiyuk is moved.
The receiver has apparently earned a reputation of being somewhat of a malcontent and a diva with the fan base, with a fair amount of them on social media believing the wideout should just end his standoff with the team, play out the final year of his contract, and then let the chips fall where they may next offseason.
Then there’s the matter of the ripple effect a new deal would have on the team. Matt Maiocco of NBC Sports Bay Area sat down with Jennifer Lee Chan in a podcast discussing the situation, and one of the challenges the 49ers have coming up is the fact so many players are reaching the ends of their deals, including quarterback Brock Purdy.
The club is obviously going to spend the necessary amount to ensure they keep their quarterback, but given some of the other recent investments, along with the number of guys who are reaching the end of their deals, Maiocco notes that paying market value for Aiyuk may not necessarily be something that makes sense for them to do.
“So I guess the only thing that makes me think that this is different, as opposed to those other guys that we’ve mentioned, [George] Kittle, [Fred] Warner, Deebo [Samuel], and [Nick] Bosa, is that I never once thought for a second that any of those guys were going anywhere,” said Maiocco. “Even when Deebo requested his trade, never even crossed my mind that the 49ers would trade him. This one is different because of the fact they were able and willing to sign those other guys. So when you mention Brock Purdy, and then, there’s also so many other guys.”
“There’s Dre Greenlaw, there’s Deommodore Lenoir, there’s Charvarius Ward, there’s Aaron Banks, who are on the final years of their contracts, Talanoa Hufanga. All those guys are in the final year of their contracts, and with the veterans already on the team, their salaries are rising. And I realize the salary cap rises too, and I realize that if [49ers EVP of Football Operations] Paraag Marathe wanted to, he could restructure contracts. He could push everything out, like a lot of credit card spending. But I don’t think the 49ers want to do that. I don’t think they want to just mortgage the future for this year. Some people might say that’s the best move because they’ve got their team intact right now.”
Maiocco also said that he feels one of the reasons they may be balking on the idea of paying Aiyuk is the fact that both Marathe and GM John Lynch have already done the math, and they already know that keeping Aiyuk may be at the expense of other players on their roster.
As a result, he doesn’t see anything getting done ahead of the 2024 season.
“But I would say the reason why I just don’t think it’s rubber-stamped, they’ll get something done with Aiyuk, is because if they do get something done with Aiyuk on a market value deal for him, down the road, they’re going to have to make some difficult decisions,” explained Maiocco. “Whether it’s Deebo Samuel. Whether it’s Trent Williams. Whether it’s not resigning any of those guys we just mentioned other than Purdy – they’re going to re-sign him. I just think that now somewhere in Santa Clara, in Paraag Marathe’s office, or John Lynch’s office, is a board that says, ’49ers can re-sign Aiyuk’, but it means these guys definitely aren’t coming back or the 49ers, maybe they play out this season – Brandon Aiyuk on the $14.124 million contract for this year.”
“If he plays this year and then they part ways after this season, then they can afford all these other guys and potentially add some draft picks. So in my mind, the most likely scenarios are that either they sign him to an extension in the next couple of weeks or he plays out this year, and then the 49ers likely tag him and then trade him after this season. I still think that a trade of Brandon Aiyuk at this point right now before the season starts, it’s probably the third least-likely scenario.”
Should that be the way things ultimately play out, it likely sets up a situation next March where the Patriots could have another wideout in addition to future free agent – Bengals WR Tee Higgins – to take a swing at.
One other factor in this could be the fact that Deebo Samuel is potentially in the final year of his deal. Despite being signed through the 2025 season, the 49ers also have an out with the wideout after 2024.
49ers writer Jose Luis Sanchez III of SI recently wrote a couple of weeks ago that the club may use this season to take a hard look at both players before making a decision of which one to move forward with.
As he points out, the selection of Ricky Pearsall this past April was interesting because both Samuel and Pearsall share similar skillsets, which had some at the time believing it was an indication of the team’s intentions beyond 2024.
He believes that this year would allow them to see what they have in the rookie, while also buying them time to make a decision on whether or not to part ways with Samuel and extend Aiyuk beyond 2024 or potentially just move on from him.
With things now getting heated between the two sides, they may not have the luxury of time. Albeit, they still have the leverage, given that he’s still under contract and holding out would be costly on his part.
In the meantime, it’s possible Aiyuk could still ultimately end up with the deal he’s seeking, but it’s clear the 49ers may have a plan in place, and it’s simply not fitting Aiyuk’s timeline. Whether he likes it or not.
It also means Samuel may potentially be someone who could be part of the group of available big name receivers for teams next offseason.
Despite joining Inside the NFL and his other various television appearances for this season, it doesn’t sound like Bill Belichick is done with coaching. According to the NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, the 72-year old former Patriots coach is planning to be on someone’s sideline in 2025. “Bill Belichick intends to coach in 2025,” Pelissero said on the Rich Eisen show on Wednesday via Ryan Glasspiegel of the New York Post. “He’ll be trying to better himself. He’ll be trying to remind you that he’s not Darth Vader, that there’s more to Bill Belichick. He’s done a good job of that so far through his media stuff. He won a Sports Emmy for ‘NFL 100?”. Pelissero also added that Belichick wants to eclipse Don Shula’s win record. “He wants to pursue the all-time wins record,” he said. “Those are things that really matter a lot to Bill Belichick.” … Jonathan Jones, who is often busy supporting local charities here in New England, spent some time this week at Waters Student headquarters supporting the STEM program and advocating for food safety. He also answered questions from students during the interactive Chemistry Science fair tour at Waters Student Academy and participated in a “fireside chat” with Waters CEO Udit Batra during the event. Jones has had a busy offseason, with the veteran defensive back also having gotten married earlier this year in a beautiful ceremony down in Florida. … Greg Bedard of Boston Sports Journal reported in a podcast with co-host Nick Cattles on Wednesday that Barmore’s contract remains the wedge in the negotiations with both Matthew Judon and Davon Godchaux. “If the Patriots didn’t do anything to Christian Barmore’s contract, if they didn’t give him the extension, I still think there would have been bellyaching from Matthew Judon and Davon Godchaux,” said Bedard. “But once they gave Christian Barmore, off of really one year of production, $21 million AAV, including $19.5 million cash in 2024 – and that’s off of one year of production, really – and Matthew Judon is set to make $7.5 million in cash this year, and Davon Godchaux is set to make $8.3 million in cash this year, they might have been a little disgruntled before, but now when Barmore got his deal – and I don’t begrudge Barmore at all the Patriots, [it’s] a little rich, but you had to do something because you couldn’t let him go through this year and get to free agency and then he’s gone. The Patriots have been through this too many times. So they were proactive and hopefully in time, the deal looks better, it often does. But it went from a little grumbling to when they gave Barmore the extension, $21 million a year, that’s when it sort of went to another level. And those guys are saying, ‘If you guys are handing out money, we’ve done a few things for this franchise, more than a year, so why don’t you look at us?'”
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Handing out big money to free agents or in trades has always been a more losing proposition than not. Moves like giving Aiyuk $30M and a #1 picke does cascade into having and maintaining a solid 53 man team. Why the zillion pds of articles regarding over paying Calvin Ridley and giving a #1 pick for Aiyuk, it’s mind numbing. Fantasy Football mindset IDK. To me, if I could read Elliot Wolf’s mind, my guess is the pats will see what they have this year in KJ Osborne, Javon Baker, Boutte and Polk. Plus gauge Bourne’s situation and how Pop… Read more »