Brandon Aiyuk throws shade at Philadelphia Eagles

There’s some sour grapes coming out of the Napa Valley this week, with plenty of shade directed at the Philadelphia Eagles. A week after Philly eliminated the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship to claim the George Halas Trophy, some of the Niners’ fans are still having a hard time dealing with the loss. It appears that Brandon Aiyuk is in his feelings as well.

During an appearance on TheSFNiners podcast over the weekend, Aiyuk gave his thoughts on the Super Bowl LVII matchup:

‘Hypothetically speaking, if I were to bet on this game, I would take everything that I own, get it in cash, and put my money on the Kansas City Chiefs,” Aiyuk said. “Like I said, I’m not going to talk about Philly but’ …

You guessed it. Apparently, Brandon Aiyuk isn’t impressed with Philadelphia Eagles’ defense.

We wish that we could tell you that something sensible came from Aiyuk’s soliloquy. It didn’t. He just couldn’t help himself. He just had to disrespect the very defense that held him down six days earlier at Lincoln Financial Field:

"I don’t know fully about that defense. I don’t know. They talk about them being a good defense, I’m not too sure. I think the pass game, this Kansas City pass game, will expose what we thought we were going to be able to expose before some unfortunate circumstances happened."

Sure, the Niners coaching staff probably thought they were going to get more than one catch for 10 yards out of Aiyuk, regardless of who the quarterback was. The fact remains though. No defense was better against the pass this year than the Philadelphia Eagles, and Brandon’s bruised ego doesn’t change that.

To be fair, Haason Reddick certainly changed the game when he sent Brock Purdy out with a UCL injury, and Josh Johnson’s concussion didn’t help either, but if Aiyuk wants to point fingers, maybe he should blame his coach for a poor blocking scheme (asking a reserve tight end to block Haason Reddick). While we’re at it. How about we blame the defense he shares a locker room with?

San Francisco was great against the run all year. Only the Tennessee Titans gave up fewer yards on the ground and the Niners gave up a league-best 3.4 yards per rush before the playoffs. That wasn’t the case in the NFC Championship Game as the Eagles ran for four touchdowns in a 31-7 rout.

The bottom line is, the Philadelphia Eagles are one win away from their second Super Bowl Championship in five years. To his credit, Aiyuk prefaced his statements by saying, ‘Look at me, I’m sitting on the couch, I have no room to talk about nobody playing next week.’

At least he got that right. Hopefully, that couch will be comfortable for Super Bowl LVII.