Will 49ers find MIA receiver Aiyuk in Chicago?
Six games into the 2021 season, 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk remains the invisible man.
Aiyuk was on the field for 40 snaps in the 49ers' 30-18 loss to the Indianapolis Colts and was the target of exactly one pass from Jimmy Garoppolo, which he caught for a 6-yard gain.
It continued a season-long trend where Aiyuk has been missing in action in what has been a prolonged sophomore slump on a team that could desperately use another threat at wide receiver to go along with Deebo Samuel. Samuel leads the 49ers with 33 receptions for 638 yards.
Go ahead and assume Aiyuk, the No. 25 pick in the first round out of Arizona State, has heard about it too. Either that or general manager John Lynch figured Aiyuk would get the message during his weekly appearance on KNBR.
“There's been so much discussion around Brandon because everyone saw his talent that first year,” Lynch said. “A lot of players run into second-year slumps. I don't want to say `slump,' but struggles. You have to fight through that. Brandon has had a couple of good weeks of practice, and when you stack those, it translates to the game and you earn the trust of people and come to you.”
Actually, calling it a slump would be accurate. A year after catching 60 passes for 748 yards in 12 games as a rookie, Aiyuk has nine receptions for 96 yards and one touchdown in six games. He's been the target of just 16 passes, going from 8.0 targets per game to 2.7 in his second year.
There were 12 receivers drafted in the first two rounds of the 2020 NFL draft. Other than two who were lost to injury (Jerry Jeudy and K.J. Hamler of Denver), only one — Denzel Mims of the Jets — has been targeted fewer times than Aiyuk.
Given the 49ers were without tight end George Kittle last week and that Mohamed Sanu is their second-leading wide receiver with 11 receptions for 113 yards, the offense is crying out for a playmaker to accompany Samuel. Aiyuk, 6-foot and 200 pounds, has regressed at the time where most NFL observers think he should flourish — in his second season in the system.
“You can't rely on just one guy and we won't do that going forward,” Lynch said. “We'll get more people involved.”
Aiyuk was slowed by a hamstring strain that coach Kyle Shanahan said slowed his development. But Shanahan may have tipped his hand during a production meeting before the Colts game with announcer Al Michaels and analyst Cris Collinsworth. On the air, Collinsworth quoted Shanahan as saying, `I love the kid, but he's got to start grinding.”
Shanahan left that part out when talking to reporters Wednesday.
“I want Aiyuk to keep getting better. I don't think he's quite back to where he was last year. And I expected him to be better this year than last year,” Shanahan said. “I think he's still trying to get back to that point, which I think he's closer to that point right now than he was a couple of weeks ago because he has been working hard and trying to get there. And if he keeps doing that I believe things will get better for him and us.”
Mike Mcdaniel, the 49ers offensive coordinator, addressed the issue of routerunning Thursday as it pertained to Aiyuk.
“That's some of what we've been talking about in terms of him needing to develop,” Mcdaniel said. “To get him to understand to look through the lens of a defender with every route. One of the foundational fundamental things is making all routes look the same starting with the go-route and moving on from there.”