The media is still trying to predict what San Francisco 49ers quarterback Trey Lance will be. No one—except the 49ers—saw much of him in 2021. Last year's No. 3 overall pick started just two games, replacing an injured Jimmy Garoppolo and adding a few scattered reps here and there. That totaled to 178 snaps this past season.
That's hardly enough to make a definitive assessment of a player or accurately predict the young quarterback's NFL future.
People are trying to do that, though. Some look at the limited sample size and say Lance doesn't look ready. They say he couldn't possibly take on a starting role after a couple of games featuring some up-and-down moments. Then there was the offseason chatter that Lance isn't ready and that his development was taking longer than expected.
Others believe in the hype coming out of last year's pre-draft conjecture—that Lance has all the tools to thrive in the NFL and just needed time to sit and learn, which he got. The 49ers trying to trade Garoppolo says a lot about their faith in Lance. Of course, the fact that the team is seemingly failing miserably in attempting to get the returns they hoped for their veteran quarterback isn't helpful.
The NFL has seen second-year quarterbacks shine. Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, speaking with Rich Eisen on The Rich Eisen Show, acknowledges that could happen with Lance and the 49ers.
"I think it was BetMGM that had a lot of action on Trey Lance for their MVP prop at pretty high odds, but they've come down some with the bets that were placed on Lance," Florio told Eisen. "That's kind of a surprise [for] a first-year starter. But you know what? Look at the past several years. Second-year quarterbacks just come up out of nowhere and become MVP candidates.
"We saw it with Patrick Mahomes in 2018. We saw it with Lamar Jackson in 2019. Both won MVP. We saw Kyler Murray in 2020 have some [early] MVP buzz. So it's not out of the question that Trey Lance could take the league by storm like some of these other guys have."
Eisen added that Joe Burrow made it to the Super Bowl in his second year.
Florio also works the opposite view, pointing to the fact that the 49ers have downplayed the urgency of getting Lance onto the football field. CEO Jed York said last year that the team is willing and ready to pay Garoppolo through the remainder of his contract if it means Lance has sufficient time to develop.
"So, for us, if you invest $25 (million) or $50 million into your rookie to get them ready, then to me, we're investing in the long-term future of our team," York said. "And you never want to put somebody out there, especially a guy who you heard the sort of parlance about Trey, [that] he hasn't played as much."
This offseason, general manager John Lynch added that the team has a plan to keep Garoppolo and Lance for another season, if necessary.
"If we have the two of them again, and let them go compete, then we're happy to do that as well," Lynch said after sharing how highly the 49ers think of Garoppolo. "And we're capable of doing that with our cap."