The 4 of July is long gone, and Brandon Aiyuk delayed the fireworks he caused in the San Francisco 49ers and the NFL in general. We’re sure you’ve heard about the 49ers WR going through the Commanders’ practice tapes by now. Kyle Shanahan will focus on coaching the team, while John Lynch is focused on money. Where does it leave Brock Purdy then?

Grant Cohn of SI and a 49ers reporter pointed out what it would mean for Brock Purdy going forward. Purdy and Aiyuk together are better than most of the QB-WR duo to exist in the NFL right now. They even surpass Dak-CeeDee and even Burrow-Chase on some criteria. Understandably, this is a genuine reason for Purdy to be upset.

“From Brock Purdy’s perspective, he’s sitting at home reading his Bible and he goes on TikTok just to see what’s going on with Brandon. Puts down the Bible for a minute, looks at TikTok, and sees Brandon posting about some other quarterback. That’s got to hurt,” said Cohn on The Grant Cohn Show and later transitioned to how Brandon Aiyuk “blew up” because of Purdy and things would be 10x different under someone like Jimmy G, or even Trey Lance.

Purdy polarized the league when he stepped into the NFL. Out of all the people, it’s Brandon Aiyuk who can’t call Brock Purdy “Mr. Irrelevant.” That’s because there’s truth to Cohn’s words and last season’s stats prove it. “Hurt” might be somewhat a correct word to use, considering Brandon Aiyuk’s train of thought. The 49ers have lost two Super Bowl games to the Kansas City Chiefs in a matter of the last 5 years. A cycle has to break for a major shift in 49ers’ trajectory. The classic case of “Money is the root of all evil,” which in itself is like poetry in motion.

Let’s hop into our DeLoreans and go back to the 2020 season where Aiyuk had and 748-yard game. His 2021 season saw a slight improvement, with 826 receiving yards. But when Purdy came into the scene, the stars in Brandon Aiyuk’s luck also changed. He started putting up thousand-yard seasons and last year was his best season where he reached 1,342 yards and 7 touchdowns.

While there’s nothing wrong with caring about financial gains, camaraderie with your teammates is also a very important part of working with any major organization that’s paying you millions of dollars. The thing is this “gun for hire” attitude isn’t doing anyone a favor currently.

Looking at these stats mentioned above, it’s obvious that a third grader could have come up with those. But to establish why the duo is like peanut butter and jelly, we need to dissect the 49ers’ last season through the Purdy-Aiyuk lens.

Is Brock Purdy nothing without Brandon Aiyuk or is it the other way around?

Let’s talk about EPAs for a minute. It’s just a metric of how well a team performs before and after the snap. It takes into account factors like downs, distance to go, field position, home-field advantage, and time left on the clock. NFL applied that logic to the Purdy-Aiyuk situation and saw some fascinating things unfold.

The 49ers QB-WR duo ranked 8 in the NFL after they went 30/41 in their passes over 511 yards and scored two touchdowns. The total Expected Points Added amounted to +29.1, and it’s better than what the Dak Prescott-CeeDee Lamb and Joe Burrow-Ja’Marr Chase duo have ever done. This is the analysis before week 5 of the last season and things get better.

From week 5 onwards, Purdy and Aiyuk became a top-flight QB-WR duo after putting up an EPA of +30.1. Another crucial piece of math here is that the QB-WR duo shines the brightest at 10-19 yards from the line of scrimmage. It impressed the NFL so much that they started quoting Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, and their receivers, Stefon Diggs and Travis Kelce in the same breath.

NFL’s EPA analysis quoted, “Their [Purdy-Aiyuk’s] relationship has generated the third-most EPA on intermediate targets this season (+21.9), behind just Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce (+29.4) and Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs (+26.1).” Here, intermediate targets range from 10 to 19 yards, as mentioned earlier.

This brings us to the question: Does Brandon Aiyuk not think about the progress he’s made with Brock Purdy? We know Jayden Daniels is one of the few generational talents drafted this year. But why leave the guy who had a huge hand in boosting your numbers? Is money the only thing influencing his decision or is there something more to that? Let us know what you think.