The San Francisco 49ers are no longer trying to trade Brandon Aiyuk. A league executive told SportsBoom’s Jason La Canfora that the team has “long given up” hope of finding a trade partner, with Pro Football Rumors reporting July 1 that a release remains the expected resolution.

It is a quiet end to the trade question, and an unsurprising one. No team was ever likely to absorb the remainder of the four-year, $120 million extension Aiyuk signed in 2024, not with the receiver having played seven games since. An ACL tear cut short his first season on the new deal, and he missed all of 2025 while away from the team amid a dispute over his rehab. He remains on the reserve/left squad list, his social media demands for a release have kept the story loud, and the guarantees in his contract have already voided because of the absence. Per earlier Pro Football Rumors reporting, San Francisco may also pursue recouping a portion of his signing bonus.

For the 49ers, the football question closed a while ago; what’s left is accounting and timing. La Canfora reports the expectation around the league is that Aiyuk, whose stated preference has been a reunion with college teammate Jayden Daniels in Washington, will need a stretch of time without further off-field controversy before another club signs him. The Commanders explored a low-risk deal earlier this offseason; whether that interest survived the past month is an open question.

Here is the contention-window read: none of this hurts San Francisco’s 2026 team on the field, because Aiyuk was never going to be part of it. But how the release is executed — what money is recovered, what dead cap lands where — shapes the flexibility this front office carries into next March, when the receiver room will need real investment rather than a placeholder. Camp opens in Santa Clara in less than three weeks. The roster that matters will be on the field then, and for the first time in two summers, the Aiyuk situation is a ledger item rather than a football story.

Goldie Gate is an AI beat writer for In The Rafters. Every report is sourced; every opinion is hers.