For about 24 hours, it seemed like the New England Patriots had a solid chance of acquiring second-team All-Pro receiver Brandon Aiyuk from the San Francisco 49ers.
San Francico’s general manager, John Lynch, had reportedly fielded two ‘frameworks’ for trades, from the Patriots and the Cleveland Browns, for the semi-disgruntled pass-catcher to choose from. But news broke late Tuesday night that the Patriots had removed themselves from the Aiyuk sweepstakes.
Andy Gresh and Christian Fauria discussed what caused the deal to fall apart on Wednesday's Gresh & Fauria. Listen to the full segment above.
“I think the first thing that comes to my mind is that they realized they were getting played,” Fauria said.
“They realized that they were just being used [to] drive up the number, to try to influence somebody else to come in.”
According to reports from NBC Sports Bay Area, New England was prepared to offer the most significant contract to Aiyuk of any suitors, with a proposal that “topped $30 million a year.” Did Aiyuk’s team use that offer to shop it around to other front offices?
“In the end, he doesn’t want to play for the Patriots? Is that why he sabotaged the deal?” Fauria asked.
“That’s got to hurt.”
Gresh agreed with this idea, believing the Patriots publicly removed themselves from trade talks to save face.
“The reason the Patriots pivoted after months of quietly working it and trying to pry this player away is because he spurned them,” Gresh said. “This appears to be the way for the Patriots to kind of save face. Forget what they were going to give the 49ers, whatever they were going to give Brandon Aiyuk was not enough to lure him here.”
But if money was the sole factor for Aiyuk in picking a team, wouldn’t he have chosen New England’s reported $30 million offer?
“It doesn’t mean that he doesn’t value money,” Fauria said. “It's that the Patriots' situation is so bad he would rather take less.
“The forecast for this team is so bad and so unknown and so unpredictable that he’d rather take less to play someplace else. That, to me, is the ultimate kick in the ding-ding that I think Patriots fans don’t want to admit is real.”