In his NFL debut, 49ers quarterback Trey Lance announced his presence with authority. What will Kyle Shanahan make of it?
The 49ers traded up to the third overall pick to select quarterback Trey Lance out of North Dakota State, primarily because head coach and offensive shot-caller Kyle Shanahan was tired of Jimmy Garoppolo banging his head on his own ceiling in an offense that is supposed to be more expansive in the passing game than Jimmy G could make it. That didn’t mean that Lance was automatically guaranteed the starting job — Shanahan and general manager John Lynch made all the right sounds about Garoppolo as the pre-emptive starter when the regular season began, but if Lance blew it up in the preseason, everyone was obviously going to have to re-think it.
Less than one half into the 49ers’ first preseason game in 2021 against the Chiefs, one can imagine Shanahan and Lynch already re-thinking it. After a first series with Garoppolo on the field, Lance started San Francisco’s second series with a nice pass to receiver Brandon Aiyuk out of pressure which Aiyuk dropped. Two plays later, Lance’s first NFL drive ended with a sack by Kansas City uber-lineman Chris Jones.
Now, it was on Lance to make something special happen. Which… he did.
Ted Nguyen of The Athletic pointed out that this was a throwback to a corner post to receiver Trent Sherfield, and James Light (these guys are both must-follows if you want to learn more about football), added the concept from Shanahan’s playbook.
As our own Mark Schofield has pointed out, the concepts Lance ran at North Dakota State were similar enough to Shanahan’s to make the rookie a perfect fit, and it explains why he already seems so comfortable in his new system.
That familiarity reminds me of covering Russell Wilson as a rookie in 2012. I was there from Wilson’s first rookie minicamp practice through the preseason, to the point where Pete Carroll had no choice but to make Wilson the starter over Matt Flynn, who had signed a lucrative free-agent contract that offseason. It wasn’t just that Wilson was obviously the better quarterback — it was that the veterans and coaches were so obviously favoring Wilson when speaking with the media. It happened quickly, and it was obvious.
In addition, the Seahawks at that time ran a West Coast passing offense with a two-back zone power running game. Well, at North Carolina State, Wilson ran a WCO, and at Wisconsin, he ran a ton of two-back power. At one point in his rookie season, I asked him about the similarities. He laughed and said that even the terminology was the same in many instances. One imagines that Lance has the same kind of edge — not only is he the physically superior quarterback, but he obviously gets the concepts.
The 49ers’ veterans and coaches were already on board before Lance’s debut, talking about Lance’s everything from Lance’s arm strength to the stress he puts on defenses with his ability to excel in the quarterback run game.
Trey Lance is the quarterback of the 49ers’ future, and the future could be now
As impressive as the 80-yard pass was, Lance’s best play might have been his 25-yard completion to tight end Charlie Woerner. Chiefs punter Tommy Townsend had just pinned the 49ers at their own one-yard line with a 66-yard boot, and instead of taking the short, safe play in his own end zone, Lance patiently waited for Woerner to get open, and hit him on the fly.
Folks, these are things that Jimmy Garoppolo simply doesn’t do. Near the end of the first half, Lance started to show his inexperience, making frenetic passes and nearly getting picked off by cornerback Deandre Baker. But three of his incompletions were great throws that were dropped by his receivers, so when you see the first-half stat line of five completions in 12 attempts for 128 yards and a touchdown, don’t assume Lance was just slinging the ball around in YOLO fashion. If his receivers make those catches, his line is more like 8 of 12 for over 150 yards, which would make his debut even more definitive.
“Some good things, some bad things,” Shanahan said of his new quarterback at halftime. “It was good to get him out there. It was cool that he had a big play — we had a couple drops that ended a couple drives. I wish we had done better in that two-minute situation. We’ll assess it at halftime and see if we want to give him one more drive when we come out.”
Lance did come out for the second half, throwing an incompletion on a hurried first-down throw, and another incompletion on third down that probably should have been pass interference on Deandre Baker. Still, the point stands.
Trey Lance has made Kyle Shanahan’s quarterback decision more difficult than he may have imagined back in the spring, and we can’t imagine Shanahan’s unhappy about it at all.
