Did teams try to trade for 49ers' Brock Purdy before he agreed to contract extension?

It was speculated earlier this offseason that the San Francisco 49ers could trade Brock Purdy to a quarterback-needy team instead of extending him and name backup Mac Jones as their starting signal-caller for at least the 2025 season. 

However, other clubs weren't interested in matching San Francisco's possible asking price for Purdy before he and the Niners agreed to a five-year, $265M contract extension, including $181M in guarantees and a no-trade clause. 

"I remember talking to teams, and just being like...as they were trying to solve their quarterback needs, 'Any interest in Brock Purdy?' And they were like, 'Great player, but he's a great player for them.' So they didn't see it that way," ESPN NFL insider Adam Schefter said during a Tuesday appearance on the "Unsportsmanlike" radio program, as shared by David Bonilla of 49ers WebZone. "So that was the opinion of other teams."

Even as Purdy emerged as a 2023 regular-season Most Valuable Player Award finalist, the perception existed that he was little more than a "game manager" who found success in the NFL due to having offensive guru Kyle Shanahan as a head coach. While Shanahan may have wanted to make Jones and not Trey Lance the third overall pick of the 2021 draft at that time, there was never any real indication this offseason that those running the 49ers were interested in replacing Purdy with Jones. 

On Monday, Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated revealed that Purdy "didn’t want things to get ugly" amid contract extension negotiations that occurred when he was on track to play on the final year of his inexpensive rookie deal. According to Schefter, that didn't stop Purdy's camp from initially asking the 49ers for an annual salary of $65M.

According to Spotrac, Dak Prescott of the Dallas Cowboys began Tuesday as the league's highest-paid player, with an average annual salary of $60M per season.

"Everybody's initial asking price should be high," Schefter added during the segment. "That's how it should be, and [Purdy's] was. I don't know that he thought he was going to get that, but you might as well start high. Nothing abnormal or unusual about that at all."

Debates about whether or not the 49ers "overpaid" to make Purdy happy this spring won't matter much to Shanahan, general manager John Lynch and team CEO Jed York if the 25-year-old guides the club to a Super Bowl title. Nevertheless, it's interesting that other franchises were seemingly less-than-enthusiastic about giving Purdy such a massive deal at this point in his career.