The Trey Lance Shaped Elephant In the Room
This week it was announced that Sam Darnold was named the #2 QB behind Brock Purdy. This came after some woeful play during preseason. It was also rumored that the 49ers may be looking to offload Lance to a willing trade partner. As of right now, he remains a 49er. Considering what happened last year I honestly doubt the 49ers will trade him. SAME DAY EDIT: Lmao
The 49ers have been a strong team for half a decade now under Shanahan/Lynch and last year Brock Purdy earned that front office a lot of praise for taking them as far as he did despite being Mr. Irrelevant. But after this recent announcement, the media’s claws have come out and we need to start accepting that trading up for Trey Lance…was a really bad move. A trade that is so bad it deserves to be up there in the first-round bust trade Hall of Fame. The entire decision looks worse and worse as time goes on.
Not all of this is Lance’s fault. Obviously. Busts come in different flavors, and injury-preventing playtime is hard to blame on the player. Lance was supposed to be the guy last year but shit happened and the poor kid had some bad luck. Lance came into the league a giant raw project. Maybe the rawest 3rd overall pick of all time. He had one real season at North Dakota where he mostly ran the ball. Josh Allen was the obvious comparison but Allen took 2 years to develop into a good quarterback and there was no way Lance was going to amaze us all out of the gate. Lance needs playtime, he needs experience, and that’s kind of what makes the 49ers choice so goddamn weird in the first place.
Why did the 49ers go after Lance in the first place? Not just pick him, but give up a haul to ensure they could have him? Lance didn’t fit the 49ers to begin with. The 49ers were a strong, playoff-contending team on the upswing. They went to the Super Bowl two years prior and mostly missed the playoffs in the weird Covid season due to Jimmy going down. QB was an obvious need, but why a massive raw project player like Lance? Lance didn’t fit the Shanahan QB mold. Shanahan has been linked to guys like Ryan, Cousins, and Jimmy, dudes who are very far from Lance. Lance was a runner, a physical arm specimen not known for his accuracy or smarts or ability to manage a game. There is a reason that when the 49ers made the trade people started linking them to Mac Jones. Jones fit the mold. I don’t think I saw a single person speculating that they traded up for Lance.
Honestly, Jones would have been the better pick! Jones isn’t great but I think he’s more or less the same kinda guy as Purdy. He knew how to manage a stacked roster, he had plenty of experience in college, Mac would have fit the 49ers pretty well and he probably could have played immediately, unlike Lance. Of course, if Lynch and Shanny liked physical prospects who could run, WHY THE HELL DIDN’T THEY TAKE JUSTIN FIELDS? Fields was right there! He spent most of the season being the clear #2 behind Trevor and then had his draft stock fall for who knows what bullshit reasons. He was like the polished, experienced, and battle-tested version of the Lance idea. Lance at #3 shocked everyone when the pick was announced, but because Shanny has a good reputation, people were more intrigued than questioning. Well, 3 years later, it’s clear we should have been questioning.
It’s wild to think that just a few years after the 49ers fleeced the Bears when the Bears wanted Trubisky, the Bears would then benefit greatly by the 49ers getting even more fleeced in return. At least the Bears got a playoff season out of Trubisky.
The 49ers have generally been a very well-run team. Smart coaching, good management. They deserve credit for not imploding after the Chiefs Super Bowl loss and staying strong, building a dominant defense and an effective, creative offense. It’s made it easy to overlook the Lance-shaped elephant in the room. Lance might still pan out into something, time will always be the judge, but if the 49ers don’t win anything in what is very obviously their current window it will not be unreasonable to look at this pick and everything they gave up for it as a big factor that held them back in the end.
As for Lance, if he sees playing time this year, it’ll probably be in particular packages at most. Lance probably needs to leave Santa Clara if he wants a decent chance to get reps, playing time, and a future. SAME DAY EDIT: Lmao
SAME DAY EDIT: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA I finally managed to get a comic out before jinxing myself. He’s a Cowboy now, 12 hours after posting this. That’s not a bad place for him to be. As for the 49ers? They turned 3 firsts and a 3rd into…a 4th round pick. Absolute waste. One of the biggest draft mistakes a team has made.
I still think that Shanahan did ultimately want Mac Jones even at #3 but caved due to pressure from the media as well as his own FO. I remember when the trade was first announced and almost everyone at the time universally clowned them for trading the house just to potentially draft Mac Jones, despite him being an extremely obvious scheme fit that would have been a lot cheaper than Jimmy G.
Speaks to how good Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch are at their jobs that they made one of the worst moves in 21st-century football and their jobs couldn’t be more secure.
It just goes to show that even the best FOs (and I think we can safely say SF has one of the best FOs in the league) have no idea what they’re doing. We heap so much praise and disdain on people who really just have no idea, and ultimately have little control over. There are some obvious busts that you should be able to catch like Manziel and Jamarcus Russell, guys who just do not have the mindset, but there’s tons of guys who can’t translate.
Malik Hooker was a can’t-miss prospect at safety, one of the best ball-hawking FS in college at the time, but has had a pretty non-descript career. Is that the FO’s fault? Coaches? The player themselves? To the eye, Hooker was at worst the 3rd best safety at the time, he didn’t pan out, but is that really on the FO? They had a need, they took a great prospect, what else are they supposed to do? See into the future and recognize he isn’t going to be able to take over games? It’s impossible, yet what we expect out of FOs.
Another example close to home. The Vikings drafted Pat Elflein, a center, in the 3rd round. Guy was All-Big 10, All-American, Rimington Winner, etc. In the third round, that’s the kind of guy you absolutely want to pick! He absolutely did not pan out….again, who should we fault? The FO gets blamed for drafting another dud, but can you blame them with the resume presented?
I know I’m simplifying this, and often it’s a lot of things in concert, but Trey Lance is such an interesting case because he was clearly sooooooooooo raw, and yet I don’t think you can really blame anyone for this. He clearly has great tools that make him a nice prospect, but hasn’t really been able to have uninterrupted time to learn and develop at all because he keeps getting injured. it’s a shame because if the 49ers had even a competent QB the past few years, they probably win 1 Super Bowl, and likely make it to another one as well.
I mean, it was dumb to hire a former NFL player with no GM experience as the GM but that worked out ok.
What really scares me is that the Vikings seem to be one of the frontrunners to trade for Lance. No, just no. As a Vikings fan, PLEASE let this kid go to a team that’ll be willing to actually develop him. Minnesota will just chuck him out there to die once Cousins is gone.
I actually wanted the 49ers to get a non-qb because Jimmy G already had enough skill to nearly win them a sb. An O-line guy would have been preferable.
Once they decided on getting a qb, I really like Zach Wilson…so yeah
And he just got traded for a 4th round pick. That was super fast
Wow, amazing timing on this comic
As a big Bison fan, Lance definitely should have stayed in college for a while longer. Yes, he was good for us, and the Covid season did make things awkward for both levels, but had Lance been more patient, he could have had a great, formative senior year (and probably helped the Bison to another championship). Oh well.
The picks they traded became Tyreek Hill and Jalen Waddle. So, yeah.
and Micah Parsons!
Ki-Jana Carter 2.0
A bad move?
This Dolphin begs hard to differ.
They must be thanking god for Purdy otherwise heads would be rolling over in 9erLand. Still might if he regresses.