SANTA CLARA — The tone. The body language. The seriousness.
All that changed on Wednesday when 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan and general manager John Lynch spoke about wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk.
They were done playing games. And they made that point abundantly clear when they took their spots behind the lectern at Levi’s Stadium.
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“At some point you have to play,” Lynch said of Aiyuk.
One day later, Aiyuk decided it was time to play.
Aiyuk on Thursday finally agreed to the reported four-year, $120 million contract offer that, a source told NBC Sports Bay Area, had been on the table since Aug. 12.
The contract sat there, collecting dust, for 17 days.
San Francisco 49ers
Some within the organization wondered if Aiyuk simply could not make a decision. The sides were apparently close to a new contract early in the offseason.
When those talks stalled, Aiyuk requested a trade. He was presented with the very real scenarios of going to some other team in a trade. All he had to do was accept the terms of the offer from another team, and his request would have been fulfilled.
Perhaps, Aiyuk had planned all along to remain with the 49ers but hold off on signing the deal until it was time to begin game-planning for the Week 1 game against the New York Jets.
Or, maybe, the blunt words from Shanahan and Lynch — and the implied threat of Aiyuk being fined — was enough to push it over the goal line.
None of that really matters now.
Aiyuk did not take part in the 49ers’ offseason program and training camp. So it figures that he is not in the best position to carry over the momentum from his breakout season of 2023, when he caught 75 passes for 1,342 yards and seven touchdowns.
Quarterback Brock Purdy said last week that he believes he and Aiyuk would be able to pick up where they left off last season.
Only time will tell.
For now, the sides can celebrate while also considering why this could not have been done weeks -- if not months -- ago.
The 49ers turned up the heat this week in order to get the contract completed.
In the process, Lynch might also have offered the some prescient words about how the sides would pick up the pieces if the union continued.
“I’ve seen things look dire before, and they can turn quickly,” Lynch said.
Not much changed in the past 17 days . . . except everything changed with a contract agreement that 24 hours earlier appeared to be in serious jeopardy.