Brandon Aiyuk told the Patriots no because they're finally just another mediocre NFL team.
The New England Patriots wanted to make a splash.
Armed with No. 3 overall pick quarterback Drake Maye and first-year head coach Jerod Mayo, the Patriots were ready to push their chips in by trading for disgruntled San Francisco 49ers receiver Brandon Aiyuk. They were prepared to hopefully start another golden era right away, just mere years after the end of the Tom Brady and Bill Belichick era.
They seem to have forgotten that Brady and Belichick had their own legacy — which was mutually exclusive — and that the duo was the entire appeal of the franchise in the first place.
Late Tuesday night, ESPN’s Mike Reiss reported that the Patriots had backed out of a trade for Aiyuk. After apparently agreeing upon and implementing a framework, New England decided that trying to add a big fish like Aiyuk wasn’t worth it anymore despite being one of the three reported “finalists.”
After inquiring about Brandon Aiyuk’s availability, the New England Patriots have decided not to explore any further trade possibilities with the San Francisco 49ers regarding their standout wide receiver, sources told ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Tuesday …
New England had been attempting to acquire Aiyuk for months, and it had been a slow process from its side, according to sources. New England was willing to make Aiyuk one of the top five highest-paid wide receivers in the NFL in terms of average salary per year, a source said.
There are two ways to interpret this Aiyuk outcome.
On the one hand, while the Patriots understand Aiyuk is a top-flight playmaker, they can read the tea leaves. NFL teams talk to other organizations all the time. Do you really think New England isn’t aware that Mike Tomlin’s Pittsburgh Steelers are the likely favorites to land the 2023 Second-Team All-Pro? Under those kinds of circumstances, I’d also cut bait and run before further embarrassing my team in public.
Why waste more energy?
Conversely, the Patriots were seemingly willing to give Aiyuk whatever he wanted. They were set to make him one of the five highest-paid playmakers in pro football without hesitation should a trade have been finalized. They were ready to reward him with the financial security the 49ers weren’t — which will have to be the case for whichever team potentially trades for Aiyuk, regardless. And he still said no.
If you ever thought this Aiyuk trade situation was ever just about money (OK, well, not all of it), then you weren’t paying attention.
Aiyuk might want money the 49ers aren’t willing to give him, but he remains a superstar playmaker in the prime of his career. He’s only 26, and he just recorded his first-ever All-Pro campaign. While Aiyuk (probably) can’t orchestrate jumping ship to a top-flight Super Bowl contender like the Kansas City Chiefs or Baltimore Ravens as pure hypotheticals, he has enough pull to guarantee he doesn’t fade into irrelevance in his next NFL city.
Should he leave the Bay Area, Aiyuk wants to maintain his time in the spotlight and play in more meaningful games in the near future. For the time being, that is something the rebuilding Patriots can’t give him.
Instead of catching passes and setting the league on fire with the greatest quarterback of all time, Aiyuk would have to wait for the rookie Maye to slowly come into his own. Even IF that eventually happens, that’s time Aiyuk doesn’t have as he enters the next phase of his NFL career. Ask a star receiver if they like watching footballs sail over their head after running a good route while a young quarterback learns to read the field. They’d be much more candid than you think.
Instead of getting advice from the greatest coach and mentor of all time, Aiyuk would have to listen to Mayo trying to establish his program and culture on the fly. I won’t pretend that late-stage Belichick was anything to write home about. His steadfast refusal to adapt at the end is part of why he not only no longer has the Patriots’ job but is also unemployed in the NFL at large. Even then, Belichick knows a thing or two about taking great players under his wing and wringing out the absolute best from them. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say Aiyuk might have been a Patriot if the Belichick was still around.
He’s shown early promise, but who knows whether Mayo has that same capacity?
I know what you’re thinking. It’s not as if the Steelers are this bona fide marquee franchise anymore, either. An organization that hasn’t won a single playoff game in nearly a decade can hardly be viewed as one of the NFL’s cornerstones. But Pittsburgh has Tomlin, the king of players’ coaches, a man who commands respect and cultivates relationships like no one else. He’s a coach who gets unconditional love from his players and who could probably realistically coax out a 10-win season from a roster without a quarterback. I mean, he basically did just that in 2023!
The Patriots don’t have Tomlin. They don’t have anything to sell themselves to prospective free agents and unhappy veterans like Aiyuk. After a near quarter-century at the top of the NFL’s scrap heap, they are back at square one. For the first time in years, they have to prove they’re worth someone like Aiyuk betting their entire future on. The luster is gone.
As it stands, the Patriots are finally like everyone else.
