Desperate 49ers Trade Pitch Ships $120 Million WR to Patriots For Ex-Teammate

Getty

Kendrick Bourne (l) and Brandon Aiyuk (r)

The New England Patriots got themselves an immediate upgrade to what in 2024 was an NFL-worst receiving corps on Tuesday when they inked free agent four-time Pro Bowl pass catcher Stephon Diggs to a three-year deal that could pay the 31-year old former Buffalo Bills standout up to $69 million. But the Patriots are almost certainly not done yet in the receiving department, and according to a new trade proposal, they take advantage of a desperate San Francisco 49ers team to do it.

While Diggs gives second-year quarterback and 2024 No. 3 overall draft pick Drake Maye a true No. 1 wide receiver to target. Until last season when he was limited to eight games by knee injury that required surgery to repair a torn ACL, Diggs received at least 160 targets in three of the previous four seasons, and 154 in 2022, when he was with the Buffalo Bills hauling in passes from three-time Pro Bowl quarterback Josh Allen — who was named 2024 NFL MVP.

In 2024, in which Maye played 10 full games for the Patriots and parts of three others, Jacoby Brissett started five and Joe Milton III took over from Maye after one set of downs in the final game of the season, no Patriots receiver was targeted more than 100 times. The team leader was not even a wide receiver at all, but tight end Hunter Henry who was sought out 97 times by Maye.

Diggs caught at least 103 passes in each of those four seasons, and led the NFL in receptions with 127 for 1,535 yards in 2020.

Patriots Still Need More Receiving Help

All of that means that the Patriots need another top wide receiver, and the 49ers have one they absolutely must trade before Tuesday, April 1, in 27-year-old, 2020 first round draft pick (27th overall) Brandon Aiyuk.

Matt Couture of the Boston sports podcast Raise the Banner on Thursday proposed a trade that could bring Aiyuk to New England — and would reunite the 49ers with a 2017 undrafted free agent signing out of Eastern Washington, Kendrick Bourne — Aiyuk’s teammate on the 49ers in the 2020 season. The Patriots signed Bourne as a free agent in 2021.

Why do the 49ers need to deal Aiyuk sometime in the next four days? Very simply, the four-year, $120 million contract the former Arizona State Sun Devil signed with San Francisco includes a $22.85 million bonus to be paid on April 1 if Aiyuk is on the 49ers roster when that date rolls around.

49ers Need to Move Aiyuk in a Hurry

The 49ers have been actively shedding financial commitments during the current offseason, and the thinking around the NFL holds that they do not want to absorb the hit to their bottom line that keeping Aiyuk around would require of them. The Patriots, on the other hand, despite dishing out more than $300 million to sign free agents over the last few weeks, still have an estimated $71.9 million in salary cap space remaining.

Couture also proposes that the Patriots include their third-round pick, which is No. 77 overall, in the package to land Aiyuk. That is the pick that New England received from Atlanta in a trade prior to the 2024 season that sent four-time Pro Bowl linebacker Matt Judon to the Falcons.

Perhaps to make up for the loss of that draft pick, Couture also proposed that the Patriots trade for the No. 112 overall pick by sending third-year wide receiver Kayshon Boutte to the New Orleans Saints. The 22-year-old Boutte, a 2023 sixth-round pick out of LSU, was the Patriots third-leading receiver in 2024 with 589 yards.

Jonathan Vankin JONATHAN VANKIN is an award-winning journalist and writer who now covers baseball and other sports for Heavy.com. He twice won New England Press Association awards for sports feature writing. Vankin is also the author of five nonfiction books on a variety of topics, as well as nine graphic novels including most recently “Last of the Gladiators” published by Dynamite Entertainment. More about Jonathan Vankin