San Francisco 49ers: The 1 Reason Dre Greenlaw Spurned Team for Denver Broncos Revealed

The San Francisco 49ers lost one of their most important defensive players earlier this offseason when linebacker Dre Greenlaw signed a three-year $31.5 million contract with the Denver Broncos. Though he played just two games in 2024 due to injury, Greenlaw was considered one of the veterans that San Francisco wanted to have back the most.

In 2022, Greenlaw had a career year, racking up a career-high 127 tackles. The following year, he had 120 tackles.

So highly did the 49ers think of Greenlaw that they offered him more money than the Broncos ended up giving him. However, he turned them down, choosing instead to take his talents to Denver.

Dre Greenlaw’s Adopted Father Reveals Why He Chose the Denver Broncos Over the San Francisco 49ers

In a recent article by Luca Evans of the Denver Post Gazette, Greenlaw was encouraged to leave San Francisco by his adopted father, Brian Early. It was not that the pair felt that the star linebacker had been done wrong by the 49ers by any means. Rather, they felt that a change of scenery was needed so that Greenlaw could be the guy on an NFL defense.

“He wanted to be a captain, as Early said. And Early, the man who’d watched a wild 15-year-old boy grow into a self-assured man, encouraged Greenlaw to spread his wings.

“’Hey, man, you stay in San Francisco, you’re Scottie Pippen,’ Early recalled telling Greenlaw. ‘And Fred Warner is MJ.’

“’Go be frickin’ MJ’.”

In San Francisco, Greenlaw would always be considered the second-best linebacker on the team behind Fred Warner. In Denver, though, he will get the spotlight and, he believes, be viewed as that team’s best defensive player.