Everyone is trying to evaluate second-year San Francisco 49ers quarterback Trey Lance, even with his small sample size of NFL playing time. Most expect Lance to succeed the team's starter of the past four-and-a-half seasons, Jimmy Garoppolo, taking over a roster talented enough to return to the postseason.
The real question mark entering the 2022 season is Lance himself. Will he look like a young quarterback who makes mistakes as he adapts to the speed of the NFL? Or will he surprise his skeptics by showing he is ready to lead head coach Kyle Shanahan's offense despite playing just 178 snaps in 2021?
And it's not just a lack of NFL experience that has many questioning the 22-year-old quarterback. Lance played just one full collegiate season for North Dakota State back in 2019. That means he played just one game between the Bison's FCS Championship Game on January 11, 2020, and his first NFL start, an October 10, 2021 matchup against the Arizona Cardinals.
While that lack of experience is a reason to be concerned, it's also a reason to avoid snap judgments this early in Lance's NFL career.
"The one thing that would alarm me a bit about San Francisco handing the starting quarterback job to Trey Lance is his lack of experience," NBC Sports writer Peter King wrote in his most recent Football Morning in America article. "It also would keep me from making any grandiose judgments about Lance 13 months after he was drafted by the 49ers.
"In the four football seasons since enrolling at North Dakota State in 2018—three in college, one in San Francisco—Lance has thrown 389 passes in games. That's an average of 97 passes a year."
King points out a sense of urgency to throw top draft picks into the game. After all, the teams picking at the top of the draft each season typically lack talent. They can't afford to have their young talent sidelined for too long. That wasn't the case for the 49ers. It was injuries that derailed their 2020 campaign, not a lack of talent.
The 49ers saw an opportunity, trading a haul of future draft capital to move up to the No. 3 overall pick to select the inexperienced quarterback with high potential, knowing that they could afford to be patient in his development. And they were. San Francisco continued to start Garoppolo, making it back to the NFC Championship Game, allowing Lance to sit and learn behind the veteran starter.
"Not to get all philosophical here, but sometimes, covering football, we cannibalize young players," King shared. "We want quarterbacks drafted high to morph into Justin Herbert by mid-year-one. Well, Herbert threw 1,273 passes at the highest level of college football. Lance threw 318 in FBS competition, a step down from Herbert's level. Lance has thrown 101 passes, total, in his age 20 and 21 years as a quarterback. And now a team that was in the NFL Final Four last year is likely to hand him the ball to start opening day. Likely, but not certain. A little perspective would be nice over the next three months, as Lance is put under the OTA/training-camp microscope."
The 49ers return to the practice field for organized team activities on Tuesday. Wednesday will be the first session open to the media. That's when reporters will be able to continue evaluating Lance and his offseason progress.
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