Making sense of Tom Brady/49ers rumor

After the 49ers crushing Super Bowl defeat to the hands of the Chiefs, the focus immediately turned to trying to reach the Super Bowl again, but of course attain a better result. 

But after a horrid 4th quarter performance by Jimmy Garoppolo, including a miss on a deep ball to Sanders that would have put the 49ers on their way to their sixth Super Bowl, the questions about Garoppolo surfaced again, just like they always have. These questions were especially prevalent in the playoffs where Garoppolo threw a total of 14 passes in his last 6 quarters of the playoffs before the Super Bowl. Six passes after halftime against Minnesota and only eight total passes against Green Bay. His terrible 4th quarter in the game’s biggest stage escalated those questions. 

Then something that seemed crazy was thrown out there. Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk posited the idea of the 49ers signing Tom Brady and dealing Jimmy Garoppolo away. Back then, it was only seen as idle speculation amidst a peak time for there to be concerns about Garoppolo. But it got beyond that.

A few weeks passed with it dying down a bit but not completely before, at the combine, Deion Sanders brought the idea back up. Since then, it’s gone wild again, even greater than before. 

With two weeks to go until NFL free agency, Tom Brady is expected to hit free agency for the first time ever. The 42-year old has been to 9 Super Bowls and has won 6. But he had arguably the worst season of his outstanding career in 2019-20. And the media around his decision has and will rival Lebron James’ decision to take his talents to South Beach. 

But the 49ers entrance into this frenzy is a whole other level than other expected suitors like the Chargers, Colts, Raiders and maybe even the Dolphins or Bucs. 

You see, Tom Brady is from San Mateo, California and grew up a 49ers fan, and was definitely rooting for them when Mike Shanahan was in San Francisco where his son, now 49ers HC Kyle Shanahan, was a ball boy. By the way, Brady is two years older than Kyle Shanahan. 

So the questions about Garoppolo, the free agency of the greatest QB of all-time and Brady’s connection to the 49ers his whole life created a perfect storm for speculation about this possibility. It all seemed like just talk up until now. That was until some insiders came out of the combine with a sense that this is actually something being discussed. Patriots insider Tom Curran was one of the main ones but his report has been backed up by others. Now, it’s not a hard “the 49ers want him” thing. It’s just a “don’t count out the 49ers” thing. 

But how would an addition of Tom Brady even makes sense if it can at all? Well, it’s a very complicated, layered issue.

Firstly, Jimmy Garoppolo is no slacker. He’s a good QB. I wouldn’t put him anywhere near elite level, but he’s firmly in the top half of QBs. And he performed better than Brady last season. I know Brady had little help with how little weapons they had besides Edelman. 

Jimmy Garoppolo is also 28 and in his prime while Brady is 42 and his best is well behind him. I don’t think he has another career renaissance like he’s had three or four times when it seemed over for him. 

And yes, Brady could be better in Shanahan’s system with those improved weapons. But I don’t know how smooth a transition it would be. And I don’t know if he fares better in this offense than Jimmy Garoppolo.

Jimmy Garoppolo’s deal was structured so the 49ers can easily get out of it the next few years if they wish. And that was by design just in case they changed their mind on him. I think there is some merit to Shanahan not having full trust in Garoppolo, but I think it’s overblown a lot too. 

So they “can” move on from Garoppolo easily. It doesn’t mean they will. And I have an even harder time believing they’d do it for a guy who will be 43 next season. Kirk Cousins is a free agent after next season. If the 49ers would move on from Garoppolo for anyone, it would be him. Shanahan is a huge fan of Kirk Cousins. 

And I have a hard time believing Brady would take a literal “hometown discount” to play for the 49ers. He’s been taking discounts his whole career. I think one of his goals in free agency is to prove his worth and finally be one of the highest paid at his position. If he wanted to take more pay cuts, he’d stay in New England. So his cap hit would likely be higher than Garoppolo next year. And to cut or trade Garoppolo, the 49ers would eat $4M. It’s not a lot, but to a team with as low of cap space as they have, it means more. And to take that on and pay about $5M at the position would be bad for them. 

Another question is whether Brady gives them a better chance to win a Super Bowl the next two years than Garoppolo. I honestly think the answer is no. I know he’s won six but as I said, his best days are past and I don’t see another renaissance coming for him. He didn’t have the necessary pieces in New England but if you watched him play, he wasn’t great himself either. I’ve never seen Brady miss guys as much as he did last year. He was towards the bottom in completion percentage. His arm isn’t the same it was. It happens. It happened to Peyton Manning rather quickly too. 

I don’t think inserting him in Shanahan’s scheme will magically fix him. It will help for sure as it helps basically every QB, but I don’t think it’d make Brady what he was at age 30 or even what he was at age 40 just a couple years ago when he threw for 500 yards in a Super Bowl loss. Not even Brady is immortal. 

And what would the 49ers do after Brady? They’d have to send Garoppolo elsewhere to facilitate Brady. And Brady seems to be seeking a 2-year commitment, which would mean the 49ers would sacrifice a chance at Kirk Cousins again. Not that it would be smart to go from Garoppolo to Brady to Cousins over 3 years anyways. That’d be too much QB change even if all three are good. They’d have to draft a QB and hope they hit, which isn’t easy, especially when you expect to pick low in round 1 and don’t have much foot trade up possibilities. 

Now, trading Jimmy Garoppolo could help get draft capital, but the whole process of moving on from a starting QB to an aging QB that’s essentially a question mark 2-year rental at his age then drafting a QB and taking a chance on that process doesn’t make a ton of sense. It seems almost a roundabout way to get to the same spot they are in now, at best, with bad downside to just mess it all up. Jimmy Garoppolo isn’t a great or elite QB but he’s a QB they can win with. They almost did win a Super Bowl with him too. If they had, this conversation would not be a thing. 

So while this is an interesting topic that seems to get more and more interesting everyday that’s a sort of fun follow if you enjoy juicy speculation and half-rumors, the whole “signing Brady then trading in Jimmy Garoppolo” thing makes little sense for the 49ers. It makes all the sense for Brady, but the 49ers wouldn’t benefit much, if any, from it. From a cap standpoint, it makes zero sense. From a performance standpoint, it makes zero sense. From a process standpoint, it makes zero sense. It just doesn’t make much of any sense for the 49ers at all. But the pain of losing the Super Bowl the way they did and the passion to get back there and not make the same mistake could change viewpoints a bit. Emotions can make people do funny things and NFL free agency always does that. 

For now, I can’t say they won’t go for Brady and trade Garoppolo, but it seems like a wild scenario that is almost meant for TV. But as the speculation turns into a greater amount of more or less concrete rumors, this will be worth following. We will know for sure in two weeks when free agency begins and Brady signs somewhere. Until then, the rumors on this will continue to swirl so be prepared for that. It’s not going away.