Brandon Aiyuk is expected at the 49ers’ facility on Friday. He hasn’t played since October 2024, and in that time, he has gone from a contract holdout to a knee injury to a long, public estrangement from the team. Now he has a new agent in Drew Rosenhaus and has filed for reinstatement. John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan haven’t said what the 49ers will do, but what they said and what they avoided saying tells us a lot.

Lynch: “Fluid” and “Management Council”

Lynch started with the 6-1 record, which tells you where the priorities are. Then he said he is working with the NFL Management Council on a “different situation” with “no playbook,” and that he’d been advised to say little.

When a GM brings in the league’s labor arm and a lawyer’s caution, this is about process and protecting the team. It isn’t about a depth chart. Lynch’s phrase about a “pathway for both sides that works” sounds like a negotiated separation, since a player who is coming back doesn’t need a pathway.

He didn’t close the door, either.…