NFL Team Reportedly Rejected Signing Tom Brady Before QB Joined Buccaneers

Tom Brady is enjoying his time with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as he won a Super Bowl with the team earlier this year. But before he signed with Tampa, the seven-time Super Bowl champion was looking to play for another contender. According to a new book by ESPN's Seth Wickersham, Brady wanted to play for the San Francisco 49ers since he grew up a 49ers fan. However, the 49ers had no interest in signing him as they thought he was not much of an upgrade from current starting quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo. 

The book, which is called It's Better To Be Feared, says that Brady reached out to his former teammate Wes Welker who just finished up his first season as the wide receivers coach for the 49ers. After deciding to leave the New England Patriots in February 2020, Brady told Welker 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."

But the 49ers believed in Graopolo since he led the team to a Super Bowl appearance in 2019. The interesting thing about that is the 49ers drafted Trey Lance No. 3 overall this year to be the future star quarterback in San Francisco. In April 2020, 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan admitted to The Athletic that they looked into Brady. 

"All of a sudden, you hear arguably the greatest quarterback of all time is all of a sudden available, and there is a possibility that he could want to come to your team, and things like that," Shanahan said of Brady who signed with the Buccaneers in March 2020.    "And when you hear that stuff, and it actually is realistic, for you not to look into it, to me, would be completely irresponsible. 

"Once we realized and heard this could be realistic - this isn't just talk - we looked into it all, especially with the respect we have for Tom and everything, and how great of a player he is. We looked into it to try to see if it would be better for our team this year and in the future. When we weighed it all together, we didn't think it would.