The 49ers’ quarterback situation became desperate at the end of last season.
Trey Lance, Jimmy Garoppolo and Brock Purdy were all injured, and it led to a cameo from Josh Johnson — the 37-year-old journeyman with nine career starts and zero postseason snaps — replacing Purdy in the NFC Championship game against the Eagles.
But if the 49ers advanced to Super Bowl 2023, head coach Kyle Shanahan might have turned to Philip Rivers, who hadn’t logged a snap in two years.
“He was prepared to,” Shanahan told reporters Thursday. “Stuff we talked about throughout the whole year. We would’ve had to seen how that was for the Super Bowl, but that was the plan most of the year.”
The bizarre plan, if executed, would have resulted in Rivers’ first appearance since the Colts’ season-ending loss to the Bills in their January 2021 postseason game, which capped his 17-year career defined by the first 16 — and eight Pro Bowl selections — with the Chargers.
Buzz about the 49ers’ plan started to emerge after the NFL Scouting Combine in March, when Rich Eisen reported on his show that Rivers contacted the Dolphins — dealing with Tua Tagovailoa’s injury and needing to start Skylar Thompson in the postseason — and the 49ers about a possible-late season return.
But after that report, Rivers, who coaches football at St. Michael Catholic in Alabama, clarified to AL.com that he didn’t reach out to teams and that “the ship has sailed” regarding any NFL comeback.
“I heard from a couple of teams just kind of checking in,” Rivers told AL.com in March. “I didn’t contact anyone, and I’m not going anywhere. I think maybe some teams, with some guys going down, may have been just looking for a contingency plan, but nothing came of it.”
The 49ers’ quarterback dilemma started when Lance, who won the job over Garoppolo in training camp, suffered a season-ending ankle injury in Week 2.
Then, after guiding the 49ers to a 7-3 record after taking over, Garoppolo broke his foot, and that led to the introduction of Purdy — the 2022 NFL Draft’s Mr. Irrelevant who won his first seven games before an elbow injury limited his throwing against the Eagles.
But Johnson, Purdy’s replacement in the NFC Championship game, suffered a concussion, and the 49ers were stuck with Purdy, who couldn’t throw a pass, for the final 20-plus minutes of their 31-7 loss.
Purdy had offseason elbow surgery, and the 49ers also signed former Jets quarterback Sam Darnold to compete with Purdy and Lance for the starting role — even with Shanahan calling Purdy the “real deal” as the apparent favorite — once Garoppolo bolted to the Raiders in free agency.
