The 2022 season was supposed to be Trey Lance’s moment. He was the Week 1 starter with the goal of improving over the course of the season to put him and the team in position to contend for a Super Bowl by January. That was derailed by an ankle injury in Week 2 that sidelined him for the season.
Injuries have defined Lance’s short career, and he’ll need to overcome that issue to become the 49ers’ starting signal caller. General manager John Lynch on Tuesday talked about a second major hurdle facing Lance if he is able to stay healthy.
“I think his biggest thing,” Lynch said at the NFL combine, “we just have to find a way and I’ve had a lot of conversations with Trey, early in my career, I struggled to stay healthy and then I hit an eight-year stretch where I didn’t miss the snap, so sometimes you just have to go through that, the rough patches and he has to play. And that’s the biggest challenge, we have a team that’s ready to go now. He has to get out there and play. Brock (Purdy) got that opportunity this year. He grabbed it, he did great things, we’ll see at some point how we get Trey that opportunity because we very much believe in who he is as a person and who he is as a quarterback.”
This would appear to confirm reports that Purdy would be the team’s starting quarterback once he returns from a UCL tear he suffered in the NFC championship game.
Lynch said the team will “see at some point how we get Trey that opportunity.” That sounds like there won’t be an opportunity as long as Purdy is available. While none of this is necessarily new or shocking, it’s the first time a member of the 49ers’ brass has laid out the team’s plan under center in those terms.
Perhaps a huge offseason will earn Lance some headway on the depth chart and by the time Purdy comes back there’ll be a tough decision for the coaching staff. It doesn’t appear the 49ers are ready to give Lance the starting job. The third-year signal caller is going to need to step up in a big way and force the club to make that call.
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