With a new quarterback and renewed optimism, the sky feels like the limit for San Francisco 49ers wide receiver, Brandon Aiyuk this season. Could he hone in on his skillset and make 2022 the year of Aiyuk?
The first two years of Brandon Aiyuk’s NFL career have been disappointing, for a lack of a better term. Aiyuk was drafted by the San Francisco 49ers with the 25th pick of the 2020 NFL Draft with high hopes. A dominating athlete with great speed, length, and savvy route-running abilities, Aiyuk had all the makings of a star from the offset.
The 49ers had drafted Deebo Samuel a year earlier in the second round and pairing the two, along with George Kittle, seemed like a recipe for an offensive masterpiece. Kittle would be the do-it-all tight end, Samuel the ‘Z’ receiver that could be weaponized all around the offense, and Aiyuk the explosive ‘X’ receiver on the outside. And in the Kyle Shanahan offensive scheme, there was genuine optimism.
That optimism hasn’t fully translated to production during Aiyuk’s first two seasons. His first taste of training camp was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and, as a result, Aiyuk couldn’t properly embed himself into the team. The on-field results were still good. But the 49ers lost Jimmy Garoppolo after six games and succumbed to a 6-10 record. Aiyuk led the team in receiving yards (748) and receiving touchdowns (7), but only featured in 11 games. The entire 49ers roster was plagued by injuries. Still, Aiyuk flashed the skills that saw the 49ers rate him so highly. If he could stay healthy and have a strong training camp heading into 2021, big things were to be expected.
However, Aiyuk was in Shanahan’s doghouse to start the 2021 season despite starting training camp on fire. A solid reason was never given, and Shanahan played down any sort of idea of discontent, but his playing time in the first couple of weeks of the season did all the talking. Aiyuk played in just over half of the 49ers’ offensive snaps in the first two games of the season and was a mere afterthought in both outings. He wasn’t targeted against the Lions and had just one catch for six yards in Week 2 against the Eagles. Shanahan might not have said that Aiyuk was in the bad books, but it was obvious.
Aiyuk saw a few more targets as the weeks progressed, but there was no consistency. At least, not until midway through the season. That’s when Aiyuk started to find his feet with six games of over 60 yards receiving, and three games with over three yards per route run from Week 8 onwards. A strong end to the season had manyf analysts excited about Aiyuk finally reaching his potential in 2022.
So far, all the signs point towards a big year for Aiyuk. Every report coming out of camp is glowing. Aiyuk has found chemistry with first-year starter Trey Lance early on, and that could hugely benefit the 49ers. Under Jimmy Garoppolo, the 49ers operated a more conservative passing offense. Only 7.5 percent of Garoppolo’s passes travelled more than 20 yards down the field in 2021. Daniel Jones and Andy Dalton were the only quarterbacks with a lower percentage of deep passes. On the flip side, only Drew Lock and Russell Wilson had a higher percentage of deep passes than Trey Lance, per PFF.
Without diving too much into it, Lance and Garoppolo are polar opposites. And that’ll greatly benefit Aiyuk as it gives him more of a chance to stretch the field and use his blistering speed to keep defenders guessing. If camp is anything to go by, then Aiyuk should be a feature part of the 49ers offense. But more than that, if he can finally put all of the pieces together in his third year he may finally become one of the NFL’s top receivers.
-Thomas Valentine
Twitter: @tvalentinesport
Photo: All-Pro Reels. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.