The San Francisco 49ers have been playing it slow with wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk in his return from a major knee injury he suffered in Week 7 last season.
His return date has never been set, but it seemed like a foregone conclusion that Aiyuk would be back for some portion of the 2025 season. That outlook changed some Wednesday when head coach Kyle Shanahan was non-committal on Aiyuk coming back this year.
“I mean, I’m pretty confident that he is going to eventually,” Shanahan said of Aiyuk’s return. “At least open up his practice window. We talk about it being week-to-week right now, so still waiting until he is ready.”
The good news is Shanahan is maintaining that Aiyuk is week-to-week and expressing confident he’s going to have his practice window opened. The bad news is that the head coach is at least putting the idea in the ether that Aiyuk’s practice window opening may not guarantee he’ll be on the field this season.
San Francisco has done this in the past, primarily with injured draft picks, where they open their practice window for the final three weeks of the year so they can get some on-field workouts in without ultimately activating them from the injured list. Once a practice window is open the team has 21 days to decide whether to activate the player or place them on season-ending IR. Aiyuk has been on the Physically Unable to Perform list since reporting for training camp in July.
Given the direction the 49ers’ season has gone it would be difficult to blame them if they wanted to preserve the All-Pro wide receiver for the 2026 campaign where he and a spate of other 49ers will be healthier and able to contribute to what may be something closer to a Super Bowl contender.
On the other hand, they paid Aiyuk to be a key cog in their receiving corps. They’re 6-3 and any version of the team that is making a playoff run will be one that needs to put up points in bunches to give their ailing defense some margin for error. An optimized version of the 49ers’ offense has Aiyuk in it.
If the team already has an eye toward 2026, that may mean they’ve reset Aiyuk’s return date for next year as well.
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This article originally appeared on Niners Wire: Brandon Aiyuk injury update: 49ers WR may not return in 2025
