The length of Brandon Aiyuk’s contract standoff with the San Francisco 49ers has turned every morsel of possible information into a lightning rod for discourse.
That includes a video posted online Wednesday during 49ers practice where Aiyuk appeared to share an enthusiastic greeting with general manager John Lynch and head coach Kyle Shanahan.
The head coach went for the handshake and hug, leading to speculation there’d been some breakthrough on Aiyuk’s contract. Unfortunately for 49ers fans hoping a deal was imminent, Shanahan told reporters after Friday’s practice the greeting was much ado about nothing.
“That’s just usually how we greet each other, honestly,” Shanahan said in a press conference. “You guys would see maybe a lot more hugs in here if we had a film for you guys, but we’re not on Hard Knocks. We saw him on the field. He hadn’t been on the field a lot. We walked by each other and it’s usually how we greet each other. Bro hug, nothing more, nothing less. Thank you.”
This was always a possibility since any analysis of the video was purely speculative. Aiyuk has been in the 49ers’ facility and hanging out around the practice field, but given the work Shanahan is doing it’s entirely possible the two don’t run into each other very often.
There remains a sliver of good news from the video. It seems as though Aiyuk and the 49ers are still on good enough terms that the greetings between the receiver, GM and head coach are still so enthusiastic.
It’s clear both sides have the same goal in the negotiations. They both want Aiyuk to be in San Francisco. Whether they’re able to wade through the financial stickiness remains to be seen, but for now it appears like things are at least pointing the right direction even if they’re not moving very quickly.
