Prior to Thursday's joint practice between the Raiders and 49ers, former San Francisco quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo revealed he planned to play in the Super Bowl had the Niners made it following Brock Purdy's injury.

After that first session in southern Nevada, 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan reaffirmed he had a separate insurance policy in the works if his team had somehow beaten the Eagles with Josh Johnson at quarterback.

Shanahan has previously said he would have signed former Chargers and Colts quarterback Philip Rivers had the 49ers prevailed, and he reiterated that likely would have been the move if San Francisco had kept its Super Bowl dream alive.

The 49ers first talked with Rivers, a quarterback whose only blot on his resume is the lack of a Super Bowl title, after Garoppolo broke his foot in Week 13, catapulting Purdy to the role of starter.

Asked if Rivers was on board with coming out of retirement, Shanahan replied: "He was prepared to. Now that's stuff we talked about throughout the whole year. We would've had to seen how that was for the Super Bowl, but that was the plan most of the year."

So in another hypothetical world, the 49ers would have entered the Super Bowl choosing between Rivers, a not healthy Garoppolo and Johnson.

Of course, they never had to make such a decision as Johnson suffered a concussion in the second half of a 31-7 loss, the 49ers' hopes ended by the lack of a healthy quarterback.

But it is fun to think about what may have happened with Rivers at quarterback against the Chiefs having had just two weeks to prepare. Given the potency of the Kansas City offense, it's unlikely Shanahan's contingency plan would have resulted in San Francisco lifting the Lombardi Trophy.

49ers-Raiders Joint Practices: A new position battle emerges as injuries bite

San Francisco doesn’t have long to fill the void.

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