49ers fans didn't get to see much game action from rookie quarterback Trey Lance through the middle portion of the 2021 season, but that doesn't mean Lance wasn't close at one point to actually getting a heap of playing time.
Lance saw his share of snaps early in the season and even made a Week 5 start against the Cardinals in Arizona while Jimmy Garoppolo was sidelined due to injury. But from there his playing time was almost non-existent, until he was called upon to fill in for Garoppolo once again in the Week 17 win against the Houston Texans. Lance played just five snaps between Weeks 5 and 17, with those coming after being inserted late in the game during a blowout win over the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 11. But, as head coach Kyle Shanahan revealed Tuesday, Lance's workload would have looked much different had the 49ers continued the downward trend they showed at the midway point.
The 49ers went through a midseason slump that saw them lose five of six games after starting the year 2-0, which left them sitting at 3-5 after Week 9. The Week 9 game in particular was a low point for the 49ers—a humiliating 31-17 home loss to an injury-riddled Cardinals team that was forced to play a number of backups, including second-string quarterback Colt McCoy. Things were starting to look bleak for the 49ers at that point, but they unexpectedly turned their season around, beating the Rams 31-10 at home the following week to start a run that saw them win seven of nine games to finish the season and earn a spot in the NFC playoffs.
And, in the process, they changed the trajectory of the season for both Garoppolo and Lance.
During his year-end press conference on Tuesday, Shanahan was asked if there was any point late in the season when he considered giving Lance a small amount of game reps as he did early in the year. Shanahan answered in the negative, but along the way, he revealed that he almost moved Lance into the starting spot during the midseason skid and suggested he may have done so if the 49ers hadn't beaten the Rams in Week 10.
"Towards the end of the year, I never thought about just trying to get him because I knew that was about to come," Shanahan said. "When we were 3-5, that was kind of the breaking point where I knew it was getting close. I know everyone else thought it was there, which I agreed it was getting close to there. But once we won that game and went to 4-5 and ended up winning four in a row, I thought we had a chance."
Once the 49ers started to heat up, Shanahan set aside any thoughts of getting Lance some extra snaps, at least in an experience-gathering capacity.
"When you're doing that, you don't want to mess with the team," Shanahan said. "I would have done it for strategic reasons if I thought it'd help, but I wasn't going to do it just to help Trey get four to six plays and ease him in at that time because that's not what we were thinking about at that time. We were thinking about how we can get our team to the playoffs, and once we got to the playoffs, we were thinking how we could win each game because we knew only one team was going to be happy at the end, and we're not that happy."
Garoppolo spoke to reporters after the end of Shanahan's press conference and admitted that he suspected his job might be in jeopardy after the loss to the Cardinals. But, in his mind, that adversity just increased the fun factor of what the team was able to do in the end.
"I think I had some type of idea," Garoppolo said. "I never try and make things too big in my head, just try and stay in the moment, take it for what it is. But yeah, you're saying about just the Week 10 game, it seemed like every game this year, especially once we got to about the 3-5 point, each game carried some significant weight to it. But that's what makes for a good year. It makes for exciting football for the fans to watch. Obviously, as players and coaches, we're living it, so it's always crazy for us. That's the NFL season. It's never easy. It's almost when it's more difficult like this, it makes the year more memorable, I guess. You remember those tough times and all the things you had to fight through. It makes for a fun year, man. There's a lot of memories I'll remember for a long time."
Lance stepped up during his Week 17 start against the Texans, throwing for 249 yards, two touchdowns, and one interception on 16-of-23 passing in a 23-7 win. So perhaps he would have been able to do what Garoppolo did down the stretch and help the 49ers rise from the near-dead to make a run at the playoffs. We'll never know for sure, but it certainly sounds like he got close to getting that chance.