Peyton Manning recalls unusual meeting with Jim Harbaugh, 49ers in 2012

The San Francisco 49ers are coming off an impressive 2019 campaign that came just short of a championship. Still, the team's brain trust of John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan at least entertained the idea of a quarterback switch from Jimmy Garoppolo to Tom Brady. In the end, they felt Garoppolo was the better long-term answer and opted out of the Brady sweepstakes.

The 49ers were in a similar situation in 2012. The team had just come off of an impressive campaign that came just short of a trip to the Super Bowl. That team's decision-makers also contemplated a switch at quarterback from Alex Smith to Peyton Manning. Except that time, the pursuit was real.

49ers CEO Jed York felt his team had a unique selling point. It had just been in the NFC Championship Game, so Manning wouldn't have to carry a team by himself.

"I remember what I told him when he asked about the team," York recently told The Athletic. "And it was, 'Look, you're not going to have to come out here and win games by yourself, where you may have had to do that previously in your career.' … You don't have to be the master of everything and be dominant Day 1. We could help you sort of get your sea legs back."

Manning was coming off of a neck injury. There was some skepticism surrounding his health and how effective he could be in the final years of his career.

The idea of joining the 49ers intrigued Manning, who offered to meet with Jim Harbaugh, watch some film together, and possibly even throw for the 49ers head coach.

Harbaugh and his offensive coordinator, Greg Roman, agreed. But it had to be secretive. Like, CIA-style secretive. After all, Smith was still their starting quarterback.

The next day, the two 49ers coaches traveled to Duke in secret, trying to avoid a media circus. After their security scouted the home of Duke coach David Cutcliffe, the two met with Manning in the basement to talk football.

"I remember being downstairs in the basement, and Peyton was great," Harbaugh said. "It was discussion of all the offenses he knew, the protections and looking for ways we would meld them to ours, the similarities and things like that. The good ideas he had. I don't even know how long it went. It was one of those where it could have been for hours."

That's when Manning decided to throw for Harbaugh and Roman.

Before leaving the house, Cutcliffe's wife politely asked them if they wanted anything to eat. Manning, Roman, and Cutcliffe declined the kind offer. Harbaugh, however, said, "Yeah, I'll have a PB&J."

Manning felt that was odd.

Harbaugh explained: "I always feel like, at least in my mom's house, when she asks if you want something, she's offended if you don't let her make you something. I do love PB&J. Absolutely."

The advantage of throwing at Duke is that it is a private school. The group wasn't going to be interrupted by nosey media or onlookers.

That wasn't enough for the paranoid Harbaugh, who looked at the surroundings and asked, "Could there be people in the trees?"

So Harbaugh and Roman watched the workout … from their car.

"It looked like I was out there just throwing on my own," Manning remembers. "I remember finally, they said they couldn't see what they wanted to see. They were like 40 yards away in the car trying to watch this workout. And so they got out and I remember they both had hoodies on. They had (Bill) Belichick-style hoodie sweatshirts watching the workout."

Despite watching much of the workout from their cars, the two coaches were impressed with what they saw. They did eventually leave the car because Harbaugh wanted to test Manning's strength with a game of catch.

The two talked about Manning's injury. The quarterback asked about Randy Moss, who the team had recently worked out. Harbaugh bragged about throwing the football himself during the Moss workout.

"Moss looked good, but I threw the ball pretty good, too," Harbaugh told Manning.

As for the workout itself, Manning seemed to fit what the coaches were looking for.

"He could make every throw that he needed to make," Roman said. "He was good. It's amazing how he was able to get himself back into that condition. He definitely didn't have a cannon, and he was never a drive-it-open kind of guy.

"He was always (a quarterback who would) anticipate it and throw it to the spot. And he could do that as good as anybody who's ever done it, so he didn't need a big arm to do what he had to do. You just had to know that going in. You knew he wasn't going to be throwing a ton of laser beams."

While there was some concern on York's part about how much longer Manning could play, the 49ers were all-in.

"The organization was fully in on Peyton Manning coming to the 49ers," Harbaugh said, "and they handled the recruitment and negotiations. It was, 'Well, Jed is going to find a way,' which I took to mean that he was going to figure out and it would be zero players we'd lose."

Manning ended up signing with the Denver Broncos, and the 49ers would earn a trip to the Super Bowl in the ensuing season. Manning finally won another championship three years later with the Broncos.

Click here to read the entire feature on the courting of Manning over at The Athletic.