It’s appropriate that the latest installment of someone trying to get Tom Brady on the 49ers happened Tuesday on the 20th anniversary of the release of the movie “Mean Girls.” Because much like Gretchen Wieners needed to “stop trying to make ‘fetch’ happen,” people need to stop trying to make Brady happen for the 49ers.
Jermaine Wiggins, a former New England Patriots tight end who now hosts a radio show at WEEI in Boston, joined “The Morning Roast” on 95.7 The Game in San Francisco and rekindled the longstanding notion that Brady would someday unite with the team he grew up rooting for in Northern California.
“If I’m San Francisco, I’d be picking up the phone again and saying, ‘Hey Tom, what do we got to do to get you here?'” Wiggins said. “Because how long is the window gonna stay open for the 49ers?”
Questioning the width of the 49ers’ Super Bowl window is perfectly valid, particularly when it comes to the core group of players they’ve been making deep playoff runs with since the 2019 season. Trying to shoehorn a soon-to-be 47-year-old Brady, who hasn’t played in the NFL since the 2022 season, into the mix is less valid.
We’ll table the debate about whether Brady would be capable of playing at a high level. Instead we’ll focus on the position the 49ers are in, and that position begins with one truth: the 49ers love Brock Purdy. Love him. They’re ready to back up the Brink’s truck to keep him as their starting quarterback.
The idea of replacing him for one season of 47-year-old Tom Brady probably moves them less than it did last year, when head coach Kyle Shanahan braced Purdy for the team’s pursuit of the former Patriots QB. Purdy did lead the 49ers to the Super Bowl last season, and perhaps the story might be different had he played particularly poorly in that game. It’s just hard to imagine the coaching staff ran that film back and concluded they didn’t get enough from the second-year signal caller in the biggest game of his life.
Not only might Shanahan believe Purdy at this point is the all-around better option, there’s an interpersonal dynamic to nurture with the player they believe is their franchise quarterback.
Purdy will be eligible for a contract extension after the 2024 season. There’s no fifth-year option on his seventh-round rookie contract, so getting Purdy extended after this year keeps him from hitting the free agent market after 2025. Benching him for that third season in favor of Brady might permanently sever the relationship where his interest in returning to the 49ers at all, or doing so on something of a team-friendly contract.
This helps us circle back to the Super Bowl window portion of the discussion. San Francisco doesn’t believe its window is closing. It might be closing for the iteration of the team that features players like Deebo Samuel, Kyle Juszczyk, George Kittle and Trent Williams, but the belief in Purdy comes with the belief that he’ll help them extend that Super Bowl window.
There’s a gap from this 49ers era to the next one, and Purdy is one of the key players in bridging that gap. Stop trying to make Tom Brady happen.
He doesn’t even go here.
