Tom Brady was pursued by at least a handful of teams once he decided to leave the New England Patriots, but the sweepstakes would have ended much more quickly if the San Francisco 49ers were interested. Unfortunately for them, they seem to have badly misjudged the future Hall of Famer’s skills.
In his upcoming book about the Patriots’ dynasty, “It’s Better to Be Feared,” ESPN’s Seth Wickersham says Brady informed Wes Welker, a wide receivers coach with the 49ers, that he wanted to sign with San Francisco during the 2019 offseason. Brady is from the Bay Area and his family still lives there. According to Wickersham, Brady told Welker that there would be “no free-agency tour, no bidding war, full stop; he would end his career where his love of football began, in scarlet and gold, allowing his parents to drive to (his) games for the first time since the 1990s.”
Matt Maiocco of NBC Sports confirmed that Kyle Shanahan and the Niners were aware that Brady wanted to sign with them. But Wickersham reports that Shanahan asked his offensive assistants to watch all of Brady’s throws from the 2019 season. Shanahan did the same, and San Francisco’s coaching staff came to the conclusion that Brady was not much better than Jimmy Garaoppolo at that stage of both quarterbacks’ careers. For that reason, the 49ers passed.
Ouch.
Garoppolo had just led the Niners to the Super Bowl, so you can understand why the team believed in him. You can also understand why they were concerned about Brady’s skills declining, as his numbers were down across the board in 2019.
Of course, we have since learned that Brady only struggled in his final season with the Patriots because he had a terrible offense around him. It has also become clear that Garoppolo is average at best, which is why the Niners traded up to draft Trey Lance.
Now that we have all of this new information, it seems safe to assume Brady was talking about Garoppolo when he made this famous remark last offseason. While the 49ers don’t have nearly as good of a supporting cast as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, they have to be kicking themselves over not signing Brady.
