It’s been nine days since the San Francisco 49ers have been allowed to unceremoniously move on from disgruntled receiver Brandon Aiyuk in a way that saves them both money and the headache of keeping him around. Yet he remains on the roster. Why? All signs point to pettiness.

On March 11, the first day of the league’s new year, the Niners could have released Aiyuk in a way that would save them some salary cap space this year ($1.32 million) — albeit not until June 2 — and allow them to spread out the remaining money he’s owed over two seasons, instead of bearing the brunt of it all at once. The cut is called a post-June 1 designation and is often reserved for players with contracts the size of Aiyuk’s. While the 28-year-old receiver would have to wait until the late spring to officially become a free agent, teams interested in bringing Aiyuk on would know three months in advance that he’s available to sign.

But rather than ending this saga with a release, San Francisco is letting this ongoing beef between player and franchise marinate a bit longer. Supposedly it’s to wait for an interested trade partner. On paper it makes sense. Aiyuk’s tenure with the Niners is done, which was apparent in November but confirmed by general manager John Lynch in January. Rather than let him go for nothing, the organization would like to get something in return beyond a morsel of cap room in a little over 10 weeks — the trade would also be designated after June 1, mirroring the $1.32 million in savings that’d come from the designated release — like a late draft pick, which the Niners are known to capitalize on.

In practice, however, this approach isn’t quite as clean. Aiyuk’s current contract comes with a $14.6 million cap hit this season, per Spotrac, which is not enticing by any stretch of the imagination. While the details of this divorce haven’t been totally revealed, the public perception of Aiyuk’s Niners departure paints him as a quitter and as someone who didn’t take rehabbing his gruesome knee injury seriously. His subsequent concerning behavior certainly hasn’t helped his reputation either. Case in point: ESPN’s John Keim reported Thursday that the Commanders, the only team that’s been rumored to have interest in Aiyuk, “would be unlikely to trade for him or, when free, sign him to anything other than a one-year, prove-it deal.”

Technically, changing the terms of the receiver’s contract is achievable, but the major hurdle is that both team and player have to agree to it — this is pretty much the case in the Trent Williams saga. As ESPN’s Nick Wagoner put it on a podcast published Friday, this situation gives Aiyuk a “de facto no-trade clause without having a no-trade clause.” This realistically only leaves the Niners with the option of moving him on his current deal, and finding a team willing to move something in exchange for that price is something Wagoner called “very hard to believe.”

If those roadblocks weren’t enough to reconsider simply cutting him with the post-June 1 designation, there’s also the element of this being a hanging topic for at least the next couple of months. The longer Aiyuk is on the roster, the more reporters will ask questions of Niners executives, coaches and players about his situation, extending a headache that could go on well into the summer. After all, just because the plan is for a later designation, it doesn’t mean the trade will happen before that date. This also wouldn’t just be beat reporters; it would be sports media at large, even on softer interviews with player-led podcasts, as George Kittle found out.

Pettiness as the source of holding Aiyuk as long as possible would make the most sense to fans. They see their favorite team lose an expected star player for reasons that come down to his quitting. A release would be mutually beneficial between that player and his team, and the team is now taking the path of most resistance against that. Fan theory does not always match up with reality, but in this case, it’s not far off. As Wagoner even said about fans thinking this is about pettiness, “I think there may be an element of that here.”