The San Francisco 49ers were *thiiiis* close to trading for Matthew Stafford.
At least, that’s what head coach Kyle Shanahan is making it seem like. He jumped on the Ringer’s Flying Coach podcast to chop it up with Sean McVay and talked about how frustrating it was missing out on the player that McVay’s team ended up trading for.
Stafford was one of the most coveted quarterbacks in the NFL this offseason. He’d long been a trade target for several teams, but the Rams ended up actually making the deal for him by trading Jared Goff and a few picks to get their guy.
Apparently, that was almost the 49ers. And, of course, McVay ribbed Shanahan about how his team got Stafford and the 49ers didn’t.
And Shanahan took that opportunity to go off about how frustrating it was that his team didn’t stick the landing.
“You don’t want to get me started, dude…That was frustrating… I remember looking through it because everybody was telling me it was a possibility. Stafford’s the man. I studied him hard coming out of college, and you always play against him, so you know how good he is. But to know he might be available and to spend two weeks really watching him, Sean, yeah, he’s better than I realized. He was the man. He’s actually underrated to me. I know how good of a guy you got.”
Whew, he sounds not at all jealous of his boy Sean McVay. Definitely not jealous at all.
He kept going.
“I remember Saturday I was so stressed out and finally we talked to someone, it was seven at night, and they’re like, ‘No, nothing’s happening (with a trade) at the earliest until tomorrow, so you can finish your night.’ So I’m like, alright, I’m done. I put my phone down, talk to Mandy. I’m like, alright, ‘Let’s go out to dinner, let’s have some drinks.’ Half an hour later, my buddy calls me and is like, ‘I’m just telling ya, if you want Stafford, you need to get a hold of him right now.’ I’m like, ‘What do you mean? We just talked to people. I can sleep on this. We’ll talk to them tomorrow.’ ‘I’m just telling you, you need to talk to him right now.’ And then it was all over.”
Ouch. Stafford was definitely the one that got away from Shanahan and the 49ers.
It’s all good, though. They got their guy in the draft. Trey Lance seems like he could be a pretty good player moving forward.
Still, lesson learned here for everyone. If there’s something out there you really want? You’d best go get it.
