Ahead of April 1, when he was due some significant bonus money, the San Francisco 49ers might have liked to trade wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk. That date as of course come and gone, with his recovery from a torn ACL and MCL in his right knee last season as an added layer to prevent a trade.
Since Aiyuk suffered his injury in Week 7 last season, his availability for the start of the 2025 season is naturally in some doubt. On his podcast late last month, ESPN's Adam Schefter had the expected insight into Aiyuk's return timeline as he essentially confirmed a trade was not going to happen.
"He's coming along," Schefter said. "I would think he's ready to play by midseason, and there might be a team out there that is willing to basically not give up very much to get a great player who's coming off the injury."
"Midseason" is very general in regard to when Aiyuk will be ready to play, as expected, but 10-12 months out from his injury seems like a reasonable expectation. The start of training camp will be a little over nine months removed from the injury.
Kyle Shanahan offers glimmer of hope with Brandon Aiyuk injury update
During the aforementioned podcast episode, Schefter added some general optimism about Aiyuk's recovery.
"From what I understand, Dr. Neal ElAttrache (Aiyuk's orthopedic surgeon) is pleased with his progress."
At the league meetings in Florida this week, 49ers general manager John Lynch passed along a positive review from Dr. ElAttrache regarding Aiyuk's recovery (h/t to Grant Cohn of SI.com).
On Tuesday at the league meetings, 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan was asked if Aiyuk will be ready for Week 1.
"I don’t know," Shanahan said, via Matt Maiocco of NBC Sports Bay Area. "It’s too early to tell. The goal is always early. You hope to have him right away. We were told by his doctor there’s a chance. But it’s too early in the process and we’ll see when we get closer to training camp and see what it looks like."
The headline fodder is Shanahan saying "there's a chance" Aiyuk is ready for Week 1, with that as the obvious goal.
There will be automatic uncertainty for awhile, but there is now a glimmer of hope in what has thus far been a downbeat offseason in Niners country.
