If you think Brandon Aiyuk is completely powerless against the San Francisco 49ers, you would be wrong. Though Aiyuk has a no-trade clause in his contract, the 49ers will still be a key decision-maker in giving the green light to the trade. The team drives a hard bargain and it’s tough to deal with them. However, Brandon Aiyuk might have an ace in the hole.

Things are weird because the 49ers’ Super Bowl window is about to close soon and to keep that window open, they need Aiyuk. However, playing for $14.1 million a year isn’t in his plans so the next best thing he can do is to annoy the 49ers enough so that they trade him. At least that’s what Nick Wright thinks.

“Why are the Niners, who are going to get nothing back of substance for this season, when they’ve got to win, when it’s the last year theoretically when Purdy’s cheap when Trent’s 36 million, why are they going to cave and trade him at an inopportune time?” asked Nick Wright on The Colin Cowherd Podcast.

The answer, in Wright’s words, is quite simple. “The leverage Aiyuk has is, ‘I can make it miserable here.’ And people don’t think about that. Think about any workplace you’ve been in where someone who’s important and unfireable or -ish comes in and has a bad attitude, is s**t talking other people, is bringing the morale (down)…. that kills the vibe.”

AJ Brown would be a great example here. Remember his frustration last year caused a “fractured locker room” in the Eagles? Brown was upset because of the bad play calling on the coaching’s behalf and that caused him to be negative in the locker room. Even Nick Sirianni knew his locker room was in shambles.

Brown is a leader in the locker room and voicing his concerns so openly will cause doubt in other players. Taking to this, one Eagles veteran said, “Anytime you have bad body language from a leader like that, other guys see it, and it’s not good.”

Another example is Jalen Hurts’ fractured relationship with Nick Sirianni. At one point, they couldn’t even be together in a room. Again, it was not a contract-related issue, but the rift caused the Eagles to sabotage a perfectly great season by losing 6 of the last 7 games they played in the 2023 season.

Again, these were not contract issues, but the problem is essentially the same here. Brandon Aiyuk can potentially stink up the locker room and it might fracture the relationship players and Kyle Shanahan have with each other. Maybe the 49ers might want to discard Aiyuk before that happens.

Why might the 49ers want to trade Brandon Aiyuk sooner rather than later?

The answer is simple. Brock Purdy will demand a monumental extension next year and paying both is not feasible. Moreover, Trent Williams is also absent from the training camp because he also wants a new contract for himself. The problem is that the 49ers knew this was going to happen.

They had the option of trading him during the draft, which they didn’t. They could have paid him earlier, but they didn’t. At this point, it feels like they are using him as bait to find a better replacement. But Wright thinks that’s a problem.

“The problem with trading Aiyuk, is not trading Aiyuk. It’s trading Aiyuk in August if the compensation is next year’s draft when you’re trying to win this year’s Super Bowl,” said Wright. “The Niners’ best chance of winning a Super Bowl that hasn’t already happened is right now because Brock Purdy is going to go from wildly underpaid matter what you think of him to comically overpaid no matter what you think of him.”

Right now, the Niners have agreed to the trade framework the Steelers have provided. It’s all in Brandon Aiyuk’s hands now whether he agrees to a new deal or not.