Second-time San Francisco 49ers linebacker Dre Greenlaw admitted how the proverbial grass isn't always greener on the other side.
Especially if it's close to an electrical substation.
Jokes aside, Greenlaw's one-year tenure with the Denver Broncos after signing there in free agency entering 2025 didn't exactly go as planned. With injuries limiting the longtime Niners star to just eight games in the Mile High City, the Broncos opted to release him just one year into the three-year contract he signed previously.
That pretty much erased the stain of San Francisco desperately trying to keep Greenlaw around at the 11th hour before he defected to Denver.
Now back with his longtime teammate, All-Pro backer Fred Warner, Greenlaw realized how the 49ers are his true home while acknowledging his unhappiness with the Broncos.
Here's what Greenlaw said on Terron Armstead's The Set podcast:
For me, it was like, the fact that I'm not healthy, I don't feel that twitch or that gear that I felt like I need to have, but obviously I'm out here trying to do everything I can to be on the field. It makes it tough when you pay a guy $11 million and he's only on the field 50 percent of the time. It made it tough for me. It made it to the point where it kind of makes you not happy.
Now I've got to slowly come in and take reps from somebody else, which the linebackers were playing really, really good at the time, so now I'm just taking reps from this guy. And now it's like, OK, we're splitting reps, how are we going to do it? One week it's this, one week it's that, and it's like, I've never been in that position before. Yeah, I just wasn't happy. That's really what it boiled down to at the end of the day.
Everything works out for a reason. I don't regret none of it. I'm thankful for it all, for Sean (Payton) and everybody that accepted me into that organization, teammates and all. But, yeah, I'm excited to be a Niner.
Greenlaw might have been a "second fiddle" behind Warner in the Bay Area. But he had a unquestioned bona fide role in that stead. In trying to step out from behind Warner's shadow by going to Denver, Greenlaw ultimately ended up platooning with others, even if it was often out of necessity because of injuries.
Perhaps the Broncos end up regretting letting Greenlaw go, and San Francisco won't mind if he fully returns healthy.
Either way, it's safe to assume he's more than happy being back and (probably) wishes he never left in the first place.