Ahead of the San Francisco 49ers’ Divisional Round matchup against the Green Bay Packers last week, ESPN’s Nick Wagoner published a profile about Brock Purdy detailing the second-year signal caller’s rise from “Mr. Irrelevant” to being the starting quarterback for the Super Bowl favorites.
Included in the 13th paragraph of Wagoner’s piece is the detail that “the Niners were ready for one final run at Tom Brady before guaranteeing Purdy the starting job in 2023.”
I’m sorry, come again?
Wagoner later expounded:
Early in the offseason, Niners coach Kyle Shanahan sat down with Purdy and assured him that if he was healthy he would be the starter unless Brady wanted to play one more season for his hometown Niners.
An ecstatic Purdy understood the logic, but the competitor in him also bubbled under the surface.
“That meant so much to me,” Purdy said. “I remember him saying, if we can get Tom Brady, we’re going to try to get him. And I was like, ‘Yeah, he’s the GOAT. I get it.’
And that was that.
While the detail about the 49ers wanting to lure Brady out of retirement may have been ancillary to Wagoner’s overall profile, it’s surprising that “The Worldwide Leader” didn’t make a bigger deal about it. In fact, most people who hadn’t already read the story didn’t even become aware of the revelation regarding Brady until nearly a week later, when Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio published a story about it, also questioning why ESPN didn’t call more attention to it.
Considering that ESPN has never been shy about generating its own news cycle, it’s certainly curious that no one at the network took this and ran with it. After all, anything regarding the greatest quarterback of all time coming out of retirement is certainly noteworthy, and in this particular instance, it was also timely with the 49ers set to host the Packers in a playoff game.
As for why ESPN let Purdy’s revelation fly under the radar, your guess is as good as mine. Not only would a story about the 49ers wanting Brady to come out of retirement presumably be good for ratings and web traffic, but it also would have brought extra attention to Wagoner’s original piece.
Perhaps the best answer in this case is also the easiest: that it simply got lost in the shuffle during the busy build to the NFL’s Divisional Round. In any event, perhaps we now have our answer as to which team the 7-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback was contemplating joining when he was considering ending his retirement last May.
[ESPN, H/T Pro Football Talk]