What's going on with 49ers WRs?
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00:00I can individually sell the idea of any of these players,
00:06even though I was quoted and I stand by,
00:11I'm out on Brandon Aiyuk.
00:14And what that means for those of you
00:15who weren't listening to the context,
00:17it does not mean I hate the man,
00:18it means I would've traded him.
00:20It got to a point where I would've traded him.
00:22They didn't, and that's fine,
00:24and he had a really good game two weeks ago,
00:27and I largely think even in Seattle,
00:29he was fine, like all I wanna see
00:31is you make good on your opportunities,
00:33and Brandon has in the last couple of weeks.
00:35He hasn't gotten many opportunities.
00:36Hold that, because that's part of my point.
00:39Part of my point would be this.
00:40Like, you cannot in this moment
00:44make sense of these four things.
00:49You sign Brandon Aiyuk to 30 million,
00:52you often don't throw him the ball,
00:55you restructure Debo,
00:57and you draft Ricky Pearsall in the first round.
01:01Those four things don't fit.
01:04They don't fit.
01:05I can't wait to see the way this whole thing plays out,
01:08but unless you're telling me that you drafted Ricky
01:10in the first round with the thought
01:11that you didn't even really wanna start him for two years,
01:14if that's your thought, then I would argue,
01:17I don't know, maybe do something else
01:18with that first round pick.
01:20If you restructure Debo, but you plan to cut him anyway,
01:24okay, make that make sense.
01:27If you signed Brandon to 30 mil
01:29knowing that he was gonna get three targets a week,
01:34okay, I'm sorry, I don't get it.
01:38All I would love to know is what is your thought here?
01:42You're a great offense, more good players, yay.
01:47Meanwhile, Juwan's over here looking his best as well.
01:50That doesn't all add up.
01:52It seems to be a misallocation of resources,
01:56if you ask me, and yes, Dibs,
01:59that is a misallocation sensation.
02:01Go ahead and hit it before I even say it.
02:03You're gonna get there eventually.
02:05I mean, my God, well, that's the way I do things.
02:07I don't think that it's, at this point, a misallocation.
02:11I don't believe so, and forget the fact
02:13that he was a gunshot victim for just a minute.
02:15Let's just imagine that they got Ricky in,
02:18and Ricky was injured before he got shot.
02:20He had two different injuries,
02:22so you're looking at Ricky, and you're thinking,
02:25he might be a slow-played project in year one anyway,
02:28and you re-sign Brandon Aiyuk,
02:30and you did it in such a fashion
02:32that you can get out of that contract
02:35fairly comfortably after the year,
02:37and I was just looking at the numbers,
02:39and the contract, the eye-popping,
02:42is four years and 120 million.
02:44That's what everyone wants to talk about,
02:46the sticker shock, but when you really look at it,
02:48this year, the dead cap number is 45 million
02:51because he got a $23 million signing bonus,
02:55and that's pro-rated over the five-year life
02:58of the contract, and his base this year
03:01is only a million and an eighth.
03:041.125 is the base, but he got his big money,
03:08the $23 million signing bonus,
03:10but if you look at the out for this contract,
03:14if you wanted to get out after June 1st of 2025,
03:19you have a dead cap hit of 13.8 million next year,
03:23or 4.6 next year, 13.8 the year after.
03:27Point is, if you decide at the end of this year
03:30that, you know, Brandon, we don't have enough targets
03:33for you, and Ricky's pretty good,
03:35and we like Juwan at his price,
03:36and Debo, Debo's our rock,
03:39and you decide that you want to move on from Brandon,
03:41and you want to trade him next summer,
03:43your dead cap hit's only 18 million.
03:45But what a weird thing to do seconds after signing him
03:49to one of the richest wide receiver contracts
03:51in the whole league.
03:52Well, it's not right after, it's while you're giving him
03:55a year, you're giving all this a year.
03:57The deal hasn't even started yet.
04:00Y'all get that, right?
04:01Well, it has started,
04:02because he got a signing bonus of 24 million.
04:04Fine, but understand, that whole, like, per year,
04:07the AAV doesn't even start until next season.
04:09You get a deal before that even starts?
04:11Well, next year, the AAV is actually the same.
04:14You have 1.17, and the year after that, it's 1.2.
04:18You get what I'm saying.
04:19He's still on his rookie deal right now.
04:21He is, but the way these deals are, and you know this,
04:24but for the audience, if you look at this deal,
04:27four years and 120 million,
04:29the last two years of it are 27.2 and 29.2.
04:34Those deals are never going to be paid.
04:37That's money he's never going to be paid.
04:38Very possible.
04:39Unless he is amazeballs.
04:41Right, but like, in other words,
04:43what was the signing bonus?
04:44The signing bonus was 23 million.
04:46Okay, so you want to pay him his 14 million for this year,
04:49plus his 23 million for a signing bonus,
04:52and therefore, like, again, going with your premise
04:55that they might trade him after the season,
04:57that means you paid him $37 million
05:00to catch three balls a game this year.
05:02He's getting four targets a game.
05:03What is that?
05:04Well, what it is, is you're in a Super Bowl window,
05:07and you're thinking, if, let's just play it the other way.
05:11Okay, Debo Samuel, if Debo is hurt,
05:15and he's unable to play a lot of games,
05:17well, now you've got Juwan and Iyuk,
05:19and hopefully, Pearsall, no one knew
05:21he was going to get shot,
05:22but you still would have three really good receivers,
05:24a first round pick, and the rest of it.
05:26Or, if Juwan Jennings doesn't flash like he's flashed,
05:30and Pearsall does,
05:32we still have three really good receivers.
05:33I do think that the draft pick
05:35was a bit of insurance for the future,
05:38and also-
05:39That's a big word in the first round.
05:41Well, it's only big if it doesn't pan out.
05:43If he's not good, you know?
05:46I'm understanding your concept.
05:48My point is, is that for everyone who's like,
05:51well, you draft Ricky
05:53because you don't know how it's going to play out.
05:55Wow, with your first round pick?
05:58Well, you didn't draft him just for that.
06:00You drafted him because you liked the player.
06:02Okay, but if he's not going to play,
06:04I don't care if I like him.
06:05Well, you didn't know that he wasn't going to play.
06:08I would argue he would have played by now
06:10had he not gotten shot.
06:11I would argue he wouldn't have played much
06:13because even if he was healthy throughout camp,
06:17you paid Brandon 30 million and Debo's Debo.
06:20You're not playing over either of those guys.
06:22He's playing over Ronnie Bell and Chris Conley.
06:24Oh my gosh, so you're going to draft someone
06:27in the first round to come in for nine snaps a game?
06:29You don't, I mean, you only need him if you need him,
06:32and you're a really good team,
06:34so I don't think that you,
06:35I don't think you're drafting him
06:37thinking we need him to pop right now
06:39because you had Debo, and at the time you drafted him,
06:41you weren't sure about Brandon.
06:43So let's just say the Brandon thing
06:45would have fallen apart.
06:46Brandon decides, you know what?
06:47I do want to be a Patriots.
06:49I do want to be a Steelers, and I'm out of here.
06:51Okay, now you've got a first round pick,
06:53and you can get him in the Juwan role.
06:55Juwan moves up to the IUC role,
06:57and you're still probably okay.
06:59You didn't know in April
07:01how this was going to play out is my point.
07:03Understood.
07:03I'm just talking about the fact
07:05that there's two things that happened.
07:07It's not just that Brandon signed.
07:08It's that you restructured Debo.
07:11So those three things in order,
07:13to me, don't really make sense.
07:16It's not like the Niners didn't have some control over this.
07:19You knew that Debo's already signed.
07:22If you wanted to extend him further or restructure, you can.
07:26If you want to keep Brandon, you can.
07:28You've known all along
07:30that if you just want to show up with the money,
07:31which they eventually did,
07:33you would keep Brandon IUC.
07:35So this whole idea of like,
07:37let's draft Ricky as an insurance policy,
07:40for me, I would still have, like I did prior, no questions.
07:44If you told me, like, I get it.
07:47This feels like a little too much,
07:49but we're probably going to cut someone after the year.
07:51That was the premise.
07:52Articles have been written.
07:54This is it.
07:55Wide receiver survivor.
07:56Yeah, you called it.
07:57One of you is gone at the end of the year.
07:59And then you made a bunch of moves that suggest, nope.
08:02Nope, we're keeping all of you.
08:04And if we're keeping all of you, I scratch my head.
08:08See, I don't think that the moves they've made
08:10and the contracts that they've signed
08:11are as in stone as that.
08:14I do think the Debo restructure to me told Debo,
08:18we want you to be a guy who's going to be here
08:20for at least three more years.
08:21So we're going to restructure.
08:22So it works for both of us.
08:24Juwan's number's really small.
08:26So if Juwan isn't working out,
08:28you could get off him at the end of the year.
08:29Well, it turns out he is doing amazing.
08:31So you don't want to get off of him.
08:34Iuke is the interesting one because of so much of the money
08:37was paid in a signing bonus.
08:40If Brandon doesn't work out and so far he's been fine.
08:44He's not worth 30 million a year.
08:45Not even close.
08:47But if you get to the end of this year and you realize,
08:49man, Ricky Pearsall, we got something
08:52and Juwan's making peanuts and Debo's our guy.
08:55Well, Brandon, now we're going to trade you.
08:58And you know what, Brandon,
08:59you don't have a choice of where we trade you.
09:02Jordan Poole, you're going to go be a Washington Wizards.
09:04Right, but how many people who are acquiring players
09:07want that kind of contract already in place?
09:11Not many.
09:12Just take a look at what just happened
09:13with Devontae Adams and Amari Cooper.
09:16Teams don't want to acquire you or you are less attractive
09:19and will get less in return
09:21if you're making that kind of money.
09:23So my only point here, don't forget the fourth thing.
09:26It's not just we paid Brandon, we restructured Debo,
09:29and we drafted Ricky.
09:30It's also we paid Brandon
09:32and then decided to sort of just sparingly use him.
09:35It's just weird.
09:37I'm not mad at it, you're right.
09:38It's got ways that it can still play out.
09:41I would just argue that you put those four things together.
09:44I think it's fair to at least wonder
09:46what exactly are you guys doing here?
09:50What are you doing with this position?
09:51And Juwan, I don't want to quote get off that contract
09:54because you're right, it is cheap.
09:56And quite frankly, his output is wonderful.
09:59So you want that.
10:01I don't want to get rid of Juwan, keep Juwan.
10:02He's cheap and good.
10:03You're not using Brandon sparingly in my opinion.
10:07He leads the team in targets.
10:08Now his production has not been great
10:10because he and Brock are not connecting
10:12and he's got between two and four drops,
10:14depending on if you go by the actual stat or the eye test.
10:18He's got more targets than Jennings, 36,
10:21more than Kittle, 35, more than Debo, 32.
10:24So I don't think that they're using him sparingly.
10:27The problem is right now, other than the one game,
10:30really one half, right?
10:31The one half against Arizona, he's not gone off
10:35and the team, Purdy, Shanahan and Ayuk,
10:39they're not connecting where we would think that they would
10:42when the guy's making 30 million.
10:43But I do think that his contract is structured
10:48in a way that if they really didn't like it
10:50at the end of this year, they could eat that 39 million
10:54or they could eat 18 million over two years
10:56and you could move on.
10:58I don't think that they will.
10:59Yeah, again, that would be, that's a head-scratcher to me.
11:02If you break off that kind of deal
11:05and then immediately jump ship the following year.
11:08Doc, in 10 minutes on Ricky Pearsall's recovery
11:11and much more, let's go to the phones though.
11:15Vince in the city.
11:16Hi Vince, thanks for calling.
11:17What's up?
11:19Hey, what's up guys?
11:21So I think kind of along the lines
11:23of what you guys are talking about
11:25as far as like having trade capital,
11:28I think like you said, Ricky Pearsall
11:30was an insurance signing or a draft,
11:33not knowing if you were actually gonna be able
11:35to re-sign Brandon or not.
11:37You did and you're hoping, this is my thoughts on it,
11:41is you're hoping that Ricky Pearsall becomes a dog
11:45and now you've got somebody, you got a made guy
11:47who would be easier to trade in Brandon Ayuk.
11:50I say him because if, you know,
11:53watching Kyle Shanahan and his offense,
11:55he looks for versatility out of position.
11:57There's a reason why as soon as CMC gets a green light,
12:01he's gonna be the immediate starter over Jordan Mason
12:03because he's also a threat as a receiver.
12:06Jordan Mason, not so much, at least not proven yet.
12:08He wants versatility, that way he has all these different
12:12kind of crazy, you know, plays that he can run
12:15with different guys on the field.
12:16Brandon Ayuk is a pure wide receiver.
12:18I don't see him getting no tosses or sweeps or anything.
12:23He's not coming out of the backfield like Debo.
12:25He can't do that, that's not what he does.
12:27He's a pure wide receiver.
12:29So that leads me to bring up the point,
12:31there's three guys on a defensive end
12:34who I see wanting out.
12:36I know Max Crosby has said before
12:39when Devontae first demanded his trade,
12:41if he's gone or he leaves, he wants to leave too.
12:45So you got Max Crosby available, Hassan Reddick wants out,
12:49and I also can see them trying to make a move
12:52for Myles Garrett.
12:53Three guys on a defensive line who,
12:55if you were able to get a trade with Brandon Ayuk
12:58for one of those guys, that would make them
13:01an instant boost on their defense
13:04because our D-line is hurt.
13:06You don't have anybody, it's just Nick Boston
13:07and whatever guys are out there.
13:09I don't even know their names, really.
13:10Yeah, Vince, I would never, thanks Vince so much.
13:13I mean, I would never say never,
13:14but I got a hard time believing.
13:17First of all, I did not hear that Max Crosby said
13:21if Devontae goes, I wanna go.
13:23I have heard Max Crosby say, I wanna remain a Raider.
13:26I have heard that.
13:27I don't think the Raiders are gonna be interested
13:29in giving him up.
13:30As far as Cleveland giving up Myles Garrett,
13:33also have heard nothing about that.
13:34But if teams like that do wanna give up players,
13:37they don't want some hefty contract in return.
13:40That's the entire point.
13:41They wanna dump money and get a pick.
13:44That's what you're gonna watch all these teams do.
13:46That's what the Browns are gonna do.
13:47That's what the Raiders are gonna do.
13:49So do you really want the 49ers to give up draft capital
13:52for yet another super wealthy contract?
13:57I have a hard time believing, like those sound fun.
14:01In theory, what you're saying, Vince, I get,
14:03and I agree with.
14:04I just don't know how feasible deals like that actually are.
14:07Depending on the money and the player,
14:08and I know that the Crosby deal is not as big
14:11as we thought when we looked at it earlier.
14:14I'm just looking at a quote after they lost to the Broncos,
14:16which was, I guess, nine days ago.
14:19And he said, you think I'm not used to this ass going on?
14:22It is what it is.
14:23I've been dealing with it my whole career.
14:25It is what it is.
14:26And that was in response to the rumors
14:29and the nastiness around Devontae Adams wanting out,
14:32and now here we are nine days later, and he is out.
14:35Doesn't mean that Crosby's gonna be next
14:37to come up with a hamstring injury.
14:39And Devontae Adams went through a physical today,
14:41fingers crossed that he's able to pull through.
14:44I do think that that Raiders situation is one to watch
14:47because it feels broken from the top down.
14:50Shout out P.F. Changs.
14:51It would be wonderful.
14:53I wanna be clear, great idea for the Niners
14:56to go get Max Crosby.
14:58But I heard-
14:59For a conditional third?
15:00They ain't giving up.
15:00Like, the Raiders are not gonna be like, give us Iyuk.
15:04Why would they do that?
15:05Iyuk makes, he makes 50% more than what Max makes.
15:09Yeah, the next two years, Iyuk,
15:11the total cash is around 25 million.
15:13And then it goes way down.
15:16Those numbers aren't guaranteed after the next two,
15:18and that's where he's gonna probably
15:20get the Devontae Adams treatment,
15:21which is, yeah, I know that you're under contract
15:24to make huge money, but we're not paying it.