Over his tenure as 49ers coach, Kyle Shanahan has experienced several difficult contract negotiations. The stress over re-signing receiver Brandon Aiyuk has been no different.
Fortunately for San Francisco, the organization has found a way to keep most of those players seeking big extensions, but with one notable exception.
In 2020, the 49ers traded defensive tackle DeForest Buckner to the Indianapolis Colts, which Shanahan recently lamented as an incredibly difficult situation.
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"The Buckner thing is one of the hardest things I've ever gone through," Shanahan said on Tuesday's "The TK Show" episode with Tim Kawakami. "I love DeForest Buckner. We didn't want to get rid of him at all."
However, that's an inevitable issue -- a good one, as Fred Warner says -- with having so many players deserving of big contracts. In certain cases like Buckner's, the benefits of a trade outweigh re-signing a star, as Shanahan detailed. In the end, the 49ers chose to keep Arik Armstead and Jimmie Ward, in addition to adding a first-round pick, instead of keeping Buckner.
"That makes sense from an organizational standpoint. I don't want to lose Buck -- he's like everything you want for a Niner -- but those are the tough decisions that you got to make," Shanahan explained. "You can go either way, but I understand that decision. It had nothing to do with Buck. It just had to do with what we were trying to build and how many more people we could get."
As a head coach, it's Shanahan's responsibility to help determine a player's value while still keeping that individual content within the organization. That balance isn't easy, and it's further complicated by the relationships built between athletes and coaches.
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"I want every player on our team to make as much money as possible, but if you do that, only one guy is doing it," Shanahan remarked. "So they're all competing against each other, yet we're a team that's trying to win together, and that's very hard."
It's an inevitable challenge within a team sport, as there's a drive for players both to win and to provide for their families. Shanahan does appear confident in his own process of easing that tension.
"When [players] know no one is trying to screw them," Shanahan continued, "we're trying to run a business -- a football business -- then I think your relationship is going to survive."
Even though Aiyuk reportedly has requested a trade, the 49ers hope that relationship hasn't been fractured beyond repair. That, in turn, could be pivotal in avoiding a repeat of Buckner's situation.
Aiyuk's decision to report to training camp Tuesday, as a source confirmed to NBC Sports Bay Area's Matt Maiocco, would appear to be good news on that front.
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