One of the more confounding storylines of the first half of the 49ers’ season has been the virtual disappearance of Brandon Aiyuk from the offense. After a near record-setting rookie season, in which his chances of breaking Jerry Rice’s rookie receiving yards record were lost due to injury and a Reserve/COVID-19 list stint, his involvement in the offense this season fell off a cliff.
Kyle Shanahan continued to talk about the standard the 49ers expected of Aiyuk, and he and especially Mike McDaniel pointed towards Aiyuk needing to block better, but also to run his routes uniformly.
There have been some indications that Aiyuk has some tells in his route-running, allowing defenders to prepare for what depth he was running. McDaniel seemed to say that was accurate before the game against the Chicago Bears.
But on Sunday, Aiyuk had his greatest involvement in the offense thus far. Previously, he’d been targeted six times with four catches against the Packers for season-highs, but had five catches on seven targets against the Bears. In his other five games, Aiyuk was averaging two targets and one reception per game.
Shanahan said afterwards that it was “definitely” Aiyuk’s best game of the season in every aspect.
So what changed? On Thursday, Aiyuk mentioned a conversation in which he and Shanahan got their feelings off their chest when asked about valuable interactions he’s had this season.
“Me and Kyle has some words,” Aiyuk said.
He said he has some trust issues and said the conversation made him more comfortable believing the 49ers had his best interests at heart.
“Kind of just getting over the fact that everybody in this building wants the best for you,” Aiyuk said. “They’re trying to help you out whenever they’re talking to you and telling you stuff and every time somebody told me something, gave me some good information, and I’ve used that information, we’ve got out what we wanted from it. So kind of just trusting everybody, trusting them, trusting what they’re saying, believing what they’re saying and putting it in going out in the field and doing it.”
General manager John Lynch said on KNBR on Friday that the conversation between Aiyuk and Shanahan may have been the turning point for him.
Sometimes you you have to go backwards to go forward and I was there at one particular meeting, I think the one Brandon was referencing around the bye week where they had a really good dialogue. I was in there, kind of kind of felt like the guy Robert Wuhl in Bull Durham where I’m kind of like, ‘Alright, guys’ — I’m standing in between them.
But they both got some things off their chest. It was very productive and they had an honest conversation. And I think that led to Brandon understanding kind of what the frustrations were. And the good news is, man, he looked like a different player, the player we expected against Chicago.
The thing in this league, you got to do it every week. And so it’s a great start. But that’s what we expect from Brandon each week. I knew it was coming because he had been doing it on the practice field. Yeah, I expected it probably against Indy because he had been doing it on the practice field. But he put two great weeks of practice and if he can continue to do that, the sky’s the limit. And he really talks about guys who kind of unlock your offense. I think he does that for us.”
