How many of you are still convinced that the Pittsburgh Steelers will ultimately trade for a wide receiver prior to the start of the 2024 regular season? More specifically, how many of you are still convinced that the Steelers will trade for San Francisco 49ers WR Brandon Aiyuk? Regardless of how you might answer those questions, you might be interested to know what one former NFL agent thinks the current market value of Aiyuk is at this point of the offseason.
On Wednesday, former NFL agent Joel Corry, who currently writes for CBS Sports, posted a lengthy and informative article about how the recent record-breaking contract that Minnesota Vikings WR Justin Jefferson signed will affect the wide receiver market. Within that post, Corry addressed what he believes Aiyuk’s market value to be right now.
“A $30 million-per-year contract isn’t out of the question for Aiyuk after Jefferson’s extension,” Corry wrote on Wednesday. “[Deebo] Samuel’s deal, adjusted for the 22.67% increase in the salary cap over the last two years, is just over $29.25 million per year.”
Are any of you surprised by Corry’s perceived market value speculation when it comes to Aiyuk especially when it comes to the possible $30 million-per-year comment? I know I’m not. Personally, I will be surprised if Aiyuk settles for anything less than $28 million per year. On top of that, it’s hard to imagine Aiyuk settling for fully guaranteed money only in 2024. Corry, by the way, thinks that a $28.25 million per year contract, which has $77 million in overall guarantees, is probably Aiyuk’s salary floor right now.
As Corry mentioned in his post, the adjusted value for the deal that fellow 49ers WR Deebo Samuel signed in July of 2022 is just over $29.25 million when factoring in the salary cap increase over the last two years. If you’re scoring at home, that deal that Samuel signed in 2022 resulted in a new money average of $23.85 million.
Currently, Samuel is the 11th highest-paid wide receiver in the NFL, according to Over the Cap, and the ten players ranked ahead of him all have new money averages of $24 million or more. Samuel, by the way, is currently scheduled to earn $22,001,765 in 2024, while Aiyuk is currently scheduled to earn $14.124 million in 2024.
As I have now stated several times on this site and on our podcast throughout the offseason, the notion that the Steelers could possibly trade for Brandon Aiyuk this summer wouldn’t necessarily be the big story should such a deal ultimately happen. What would be the big story is if the Steelers would then turn around and make Aiyuk the highest paid player on their team. Currently, that designation belongs to OLB T.J. Watt, who has an APY of $28,002,750.
In addition to the Steelers possibly making Aiyuk the team’s highest-paid player following a trade for him, the other interesting notion would be the fully guaranteed money in the new deal. Unless the Steelers made Aiyuk the NFL’s new highest-paid wide receiver, something I would be super shocked to see happen, it would be a huge surprise to see them give him any fully guaranteed money past 2024.
In short, everything related to the Steelers possibly trading for Brandon Aiyuk, and that’s not even addressing what the trade compensation might be, makes it incredibly tough to see such a deal come to fruition between now and the start of the 2024 regular season. Not that it still couldn’t ultimately happen. It’s just tough to visualize based on the Steelers’ precedents to this point. Maybe Steelers GM Omar Khan is willing to discard those precedents. We’ll see.
For whatever it might be worth, Corry did have another interesting tidbit concerning the 49ers’ current situation. It’s related to whether the team can keep all of its lucratively paid players past the 2024 season.
“There is plenty of speculation the 49ers will have to make a choice long term at wide receiver between Aiyuk and Deebo Samuel,” Corry wrote on Wednesday.
That does indeed seem to be the growing sentiment when it comes to the 49ers at this point and even one of team’s veteran beat writers, Michael Silver, suggested as much this past week.
Very short version of where things stand with 49ers and their receivers:
1) They drafted Pearsall in the first round. He is a big part of the present and the future.
2) If Aiyuk ends up taking their best offer, Deebo will be gone after 2024.
3) If Aiyuk doesn’t take their best…— Michael Silver (@MikeSilver) June 4, 2024
I guess the bigger question concerning the 49ers when it comes to that topic would be: Might San Francisco be a lot more open to trading Samuel prior to the start of the 2024 regular season should the team ultimately get Brandon Aiyuk signed to a new lucrative contract? After all, the 49ers probably would like to make sure they get Aiyuk signed prior to trading away Samuel. Right?
Obviously, if Samuel wound up being the 49ers wide receiver the Steelers traded for, Pittsburgh would need to be able to accommodate his $22,001,765 salary under the cap as part of such a trade. The Steelers don’t currently have enough salary cap space to do that, but they certainly could get to that point with relative ease if they needed to. It would be a minor hurdle to clear overall.
If, indeed, Samuel was brought to Pittsburgh via a trade, and assuming he is fine with his deal as it currently sits, a dangerous thing to do, the Steelers could restructure it by turning a chunk of his base salary into a signing bonus. The result of such a restructuring would significantly lower Samuel’s 2024 salary cap charge. Just throwing that notion out there as a plausible option.
In closing, and as I stated in my Tuesday post that recapped several of my current thoughts on topical subjects related to the Steelers, I have become pretty much resigned to the fact that the Steelers won’t be trading for a very notable wide receiver this offseason. If, however, a 49ers wide receiver ended up being an acquisition, I think I have made a strong argument in this post as to why that player might be Samuel and, thus, not Aiyuk.
While we wait for anything to happen with the 49ers, make sure to read Corry’s recent post because it’s really well done.
