Rich: Why 49ers WR Brandon Aiyuk is the George Costanza of the NFL

Every Seinfeld fan remembers the episode. George Costanza rage quits his job, goes home, realizes quitting was a mistake, and decides to just show up to work the next day like nothing happened. Rich, on The Rich Eisen Show, says Brandon Aiyuk is now "the George Costanza of the National Football League."

The comparison fits better than it should. Aiyuk "torched every bridge in San Francisco that he could torch," Rich said, quickly adding he meant the football versions, not the actual bridges. "He quit and then raged," to the point where Rich wondered whether anyone could sit him down and say, "Stay off of Instagram, man. It's not your friend."

Something happened behind the scenes, Rich believes, to get a 49ers team that appears to need a wide receiver to basically say, "Yeah, no. This ain't happening."

And yet showing up was always the play. "He's always had to report to bring about a change in his employment that he's clearly desiring," Rich said. Pulling a Costanza forces the issue: "I'm showing up. You now need to trade me, play me, or get rid of me, and we all know you don't want to play me, so send me to where I want to go or cut me so I can go to where I want to go." With Drew Rosenhaus as his agent, Rich added, "it's not his first rodeo." Reports say Aiyuk shows up Friday.

The one way this differs from a Seinfeld episode, Rich noted, is that the NFL has media availability, so Aiyuk's teammates got asked about it. Their answers said plenty by saying nothing.

Fred Warner went first. "I don't know if I really have anything to say about it," he said, preferring to let it work itself out. "There's a lot of water under these bridges that Aiyuk torched," Rich observed.

Nick Bosa: "Not my place really." He did add, "No hard feelings between me and him," and said he'd dap Aiyuk up, which the table took as Bosa at least acknowledging his existence.

Christian McCaffrey: "I don't make any of those decisions. So not on my radar. I just focus on my job."

"What happened, man?" Rich asked. Everyone was pointing further up the flowchart. So up the flowchart he went, to Kyle Shanahan, who has been on record that Aiyuk is a non-starter.

Asked whether he expected Aiyuk at the facility, Shanahan said, "None. I have no expectation. Kind of moved on with that mentally." Pressed on whether there was any chance Aiyuk plays for the team again, he offered, "There's no absolutes in life."

One view at the table was that these players simply have their own things to worry about. The other view landed harder. "They all know it's a business and they all know something happened and they all know exactly what happened," came the reply, "and they are not saying what happened."

Shanahan was also asked whether he's concerned about Aiyuk landing with a competitor. His answer was no. Rich offered two ways to read that. One: "My defense is great. Good luck." We're 6-1, "we're the San Francisco freaking 49ers, and that's that." Two: "He knows what happened there, and the rest of the league will know what happened, and they're not going to touch him." Or as Rich summed it up, let somebody else hire him and "they'll find out what I know."

There was a brief debate about whether the Niners could simply hold onto Aiyuk without releasing him. The feeling was that doesn't work for the rest of the season, though they could hang on to him for a bit.

Then the question of the day: how does he show up on Friday? The table remembered players making a show of training camp arrivals, from a monster truck on Hard Knocks to someone backing up in a Brink's truck. The consensus advice was the opposite. Uber to work. Maybe Lyft. Someone pitched a hot air balloon. The best idea of all: walk in acting like he'd been there the whole time. "Where you guys been?"

Pure Costanza.