Tom Brady on Tuesday announced his retirement from the NFL. The Bay Area native will hang up his pads with a 2-1 record against the 49ers – the team he grew up rooting for.
Despite the 49ers appearing in two Super Bowls during Brady’s career, and the QB appearing in 10, they never managed to meet up on the NFL’s biggest stage.
In 2011 when the 49ers appeared in the NFC championship game for the first time since Brady entered the league, they fell to the Giants who went on to knock off Brady’s Patriots in the Super Bowl.
In 2012 San Francisco finally got over the hump, but this time Brady and the Patriots lost to the Ravens.
In 2013 both teams lost in the conference championship.
By the time the 49ers went back to the playoffs in 2019 and made another run to the Super Bowl, Brady’s time in New England was coming to a close and the struggling Patriots lost at home to the Titans in the wild-card round.
While the perfect postseason picture never materialized in the Brady-49ers matchup, San Francisco and New England met three times in the regular season while Brady was there and healthy. Let’s look back at those three contests.