Cross Tom Brady off the list of potential San Francisco 49ers quarterbacks next season.
With news of Brady’s (second) retirement coming from the man himself on Wednesday morning, the Niners can all but give up on the seven-time Super Bowl champion playing for the team he grew up supporting.
Which leaves San Francisco stuck in a peculiar spot—possessing everything it needs to win a Super Bowl except a healthy, reliable quarterback.
Trey Lance, Jimmy Garoppolo and Brock Purdy are all dealing with various injuries. It’s unclear how successful they’ll be if and when they return.
So what do the Niners do now if they can’t rely on their current QB room? There aren’t a ton of great options, but there are some worth exploring.
Geno Smith
It’s not the splashiest solution, but the Niners don’t need an All-Pro under center. Not when Kyle Shanahan’s team has proven it can win with Purdy thrust into the spotlight.
Smith’s resurgence in Seattle this year earned him a Pro Bowl nod as the former West Virginia star led the league in completion percentage (69.8%) en route to 30-touchdown, 4,282-yard season.
Plus there’s the added incentive for San Francisco to steal a playmaker away from their division rival if the Seahawks aren’t able to re-sign him.
Lamar Jackson
A long-shot, but not an impossibility.
The Niners are entering the offseason with just over $5 million in salary cap space, so they’d have to get creative to sign Jackson away from Baltimore.
Fortunately, Baltimore’s hesitation in giving the former MVP the mega-deal he’s been holding out for may have opened the door for another team to recruit him away from the Ravens.
Then again, Jackson dealt with his own injury concerns this season. He played in just 12 games but at 26 years old should have plenty to offer a contender over the next decade.
Bryce Young/C.J. Stroud
The implication here is the Niners trade up for the No. 1 pick—which does make plenty for sense for both San Francisco and a Chicago Bears team that currently owns the top draft slot.
Justin Fields is firmly entrenched as the Bears’ QB1, and there’s no reason to hang onto the No. 1 pick if they can swap it for some elite talent to add around him.
The Niners have tons of elite talent up and down their roster—except at the quarterback position.
A deal here makes plenty of sense if San Francisco believes Bryce Young or C.J. Stroud is worthy of going No. 1 overall and can extend the club’s title window just a bit longer.
Baker Mayfield
This would be really stretching the limit of Shanahan’s abilities as a quarterback whisperer.
That said, Mayfield is a free agent who may be available for a relative bargain after a mediocre year with the Panthers and Rams. He passed for 2,163 yards and 10 touchdowns in 12 games—and it’s not like we haven’t seen what his ceiling is with a star-studded cast around him.
Mayfield is an option. But only in the sense that he’s in need of a team and ranks above the likes of Taylor Heinicke, Joe Flacco and Sam Darnold in the free agent pool.
