49ers news: Did Tom Brady just throw shade at Jimmy Garoppolo?

While he didn’t directly say it, Tom Brady might have called out the 49ers and Jimmy Garoppolo on an upcoming show featured on HBO.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady didn’t openly come out and scorn the San Francisco 49ers and their own quarterback, Jimmy Garoppolo, on a preview of HBO’s series, The Shop: Uninterrupted, which resumes on Friday, July 2 on HBO Max.

While we don’t yet know exactly which team and player Brady was referring to, it’s not hard to connect some dots from his comments to the Niners and Jimmy G.

“What comments?” you ask?

Well, in a preview for the show on Twitter, Brady was speaking about his offseason free agency after departing from the New England Patriots after 2019 and said, “One of the teams, they weren’t interested at the very end. I was thinking, you’re sticking with that motherf–ker?”

This will probably be much clearer when the show airs, and we can already assume HBO teased us by not delving into which team Brady was talking about.

But it’s hard to not think it was San Francisco.

49ers considered Tom Brady, stuck with Jimmy Garoppolo instead

Numerous reports suggested the 49ers, Brady’s boyhood team, were the future Hall of Famer’s first choice after departing New England.

And the Niners could have been a hot destination, too. After all, Garoppolo’s flameout late in Super Bowl LIV left many to wonder if he should be at the head of a franchise that came up short in its last two Super Bowl appearances. Plus, Garoppolo’s injury history had to be a worry point as well, only magnified by San Francisco’s decision to stick with Jimmy G, who ultimately missed all but six games with an ankle injury.

Related Story: 3 things Jimmy Garoppolo can learn from Tom Brady

Meanwhile, Brady joined the Bucs and took them to a Super Bowl win.

Head coach Kyle Shanahan told The Athletic’s Tim Kawakami the following shortly after Brady joined the Buccaneers (h/t NBC Sports Bay Area).

"We had to seriously discuss it to decide whether to go forward to where it could come close or not. So it didn’t come close, but that’s why John and I had to put the time into it. If you would have asked us that right after the Super Bowl — I mean, Tom Brady, everyone knows what Tom Brady is, and how unbelievable he’s been. But if you had asked us that right after the Super Bowl, that’s kind of unheard of. It’s a pipe dream. Like, you don’t really think about that. We were just so happy with our team and happy with Jimmy. It didn’t end the way we wanted. We can all do better — myself, Jimmy."

Hindsight suggests this probably wasn’t the correct route to take, though.

Was Tom Brady actually referring to the 49ers and Jimmy Garoppolo, though?

Granted, the premise of The Shop: Uninterrupted is to paint a candid interaction with players and celebrities without having to water down the comments for a more placid viewing audience.

So, players like Brady are free to express their opinions unfiltered, which can be refreshing but also quite revealing.

If Brady was actually referring to Jimmy G and the Niners with his quote, it might stand in contrast to the comments Garoppolo made just before Super Bowl LIV.

“We always had a great relationship,” Garoppolo said, via NESN. “Tom’s a great dude.”

Garoppolo did point out that if Brady didn’t necessarily enjoy having his understudy trying to eventually take his job, it wasn’t known and was well hidden. And it’s possible Brady merely bottled up most of his feelings about the matter, which still ultimately ended with Garoppolo being traded to San Francisco in 2017 and Brady staying in New England through 2019, winning another Super Bowl there in the process.

The 49ers weren’t the only team openly courting Brady heading into 2020. Plenty of other squads were rumored to be in the mix, and some elected to stick with quarterbacks regarded as much worse than Jimmy G.

So, perhaps, Brady’s comments were directed at one of those squads, too.

Still, it’s hard to completely shake the idea Brady was tossing a slight jab back at the team he adored when he was a kid.