There are some fair questions raised regarding whether the 49ers should be shelling out top-five receiver money for wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk. His overall volume in a run-heavy offense leads to a conclusion that perhaps a lesser WR could be valuable enough to save the team some money for other areas of the roster.
While that’s a fair question, there’s a pretty clear answer that not just anyone could do what Aiyuk is doing, and there are plenty of peripheral stats to prove it.
First, Matt Harmon of reception perception wrote a piece detailing exactly how Aiyuk provides value for San Francisco just as a pass catcher, which doesn’t even account for his high-level run-blocking. Here’s the visual profile Harmon put together off of his piece (which we highly recommend diving into):
NEW Brandon Aiyuk's 2023 #ReceptionPerception profile has been added to the site ahead of schedule 👀
– 78.7% success rate vs. man, 96th percentile
– 85.4% success rate vs. zone, 91st percentile
– 83.6% success rate vs. press, 97th percentileAiyuk accomplished things last… pic.twitter.com/MqFQXa6A20
— Matt Harmon (@MattHarmon_BYB) July 11, 2024
There just aren’t any routes Aiyuk isn’t going to find success on, and that’s why simply replacing him with just any random WR won’t work. It’s hard to be as productive as Aiyuk is in this variety of ways. He maximizes what head coach Kyle Shanahan can do in the passing game because defenses can’t just take away what Aiyuk is good at, because he’s good at everything. And that type of receiver is exceedingly valuable for an offense, and a young franchise QB still carving out his path in the NFL.
