Steve Young remembers his early years with the San Francisco 49ers, sitting behind one of the greatest to ever play the game, Joe Montana, and—often impatiently—awaiting his turn.
Trey Lance is going through the same thing. He has gotten on the field this season, but not often. And he hasn't thrown a pass in a game since Week 5. The plan was always to start Jimmy Garoppolo and let the rookie sit and learn behind the more-experienced quarterback. Young understands that plan but feels it could be a wasted opportunity for Lance if he isn't attacking the situation with the right mindset.
"First of all, you learn by watching. I get that," Young reluctantly admitted this week on KNBR's Tolbert, Krueger & Brooks show. "But for me, for my career, for me, those were lost years. What I learned (while) watching was amazing, but I didn't need those years. I look at those as kind of maybe (needing) one year to kind of really get a handle on things, but those are lost years for me."
Young has some advice for Lance, the No. 3 overall draft pick who, right now, is going through a similar situation of awaiting his chance. The Hall of Fame quarterback turned ESPN analyst, while sitting behind Montana, did everything he could to prepare to start, even if his number was never called.
"Trey, plan on starting against Cincinnati," Young said as if he were speaking to the 49ers rookie directly. "... And I mean literally it's happening, and you're going to prepare, and study, and memorize, and you're going to go through the rigors of everything you need to do. Turn the TV off on Thursday, Friday, Saturday night. I'm going to go through it again, and again, and again because I've got to be ready to play.
"And then it's really frustrating, by the way, when Sunday rolls around, and you don't play. You're just like [groan]. Then you've got to run wind sprints. I was always [running] wind sprints at the end of the game just to try to get a sweat up just to make myself feel like it was worth it.
"But it was in that discipline that you can actually get better by not playing, and that's the only way to do it. Otherwise, if you're just wondering, watching, kind of like, 'Hey, that was interesting.' Screw that. That's not going to help you. That's just a waste of time. Trey can be wasting a year here unless he's digging into preparing as if he's going to play."
You can listen to the entire conversation with Young below.