There has been a lot of talk about the Pittsburgh Steelers acquiring a significant playmaker at wide receiver ahead of the 2024 season. They drafted Roman Wilson in the third round, but it remains to be seen if he can step into a WR2 role on the outside with much of his college experience coming in the slot. With the free agent market running pretty thin at this point, an acquisition would likely need to come via trade. Sports Illustrated 49ers reporter Grant Cohn reported on X that Jauan Jennings is holding out from the 49ers’ OTAs.
Jauan Jennings is skipping #49ers OTAs https://t.co/EGMQshQTAE
— Grant Cohn (@grantcohn) May 22, 2024
OTA sessions are voluntary. Most players show up, but it isn’t unusual for these holdouts to be used as a form of applying pressure in contract negotiations.
“We knew Brandon Aiyuk would skip 49ers OTAs because he wants a contract extension,” Cohn said in his post on Sports Illustrated. “We didn’t know that Jauan Jennings would do the same thing presumably for the same reason.”
Jennings had a second-round tender placed on him as a restricted free agent this offseason. That is valued at $4.89 million on a one-year deal. Similar to Aiyuk, Jennings probably doesn’t love the idea of a one-year contract lower than what he would otherwise fetch on the open market as a free agent. He will have to sign the tender eventually, but could he be a trade candidate if he ultimately requests his way out of town?
Jennings isn’t the significant playmaker that Aiyuk or Deebo Samuel are, but he would come a heck of a lot cheaper both in trade compensation and the size of the contract the Steelers would need to sign him to after acquiring him.
He only had 19 receptions for 265 yards and a touchdown in the regular season last year, but he is a tenacious blocker ainnd a solid possession receiver that the Steelers could really use after moving on from Diontae Johnson. He also played a much larger role in the 49ers’ playoff run, catching 10 passes for 111 yards and a touchdown in three games.
The 49ers drafted Ricky Pearsall and Jacob Cowing, adding to an already crowded WR room. With two of their receivers holding out of OTAs, it seems more and more likely that somebody will eventually be dealt. Jennings makes an intriguing option for the Steelers to improve their room for a much better price than some of the other trade targets.
