The San Francisco 49ers ended a short-lived era when they traded former No. 3 overall pick Trey Lance to the Dallas Cowboys for a 2024 fourth-round pick, moving forward with Brock Purdy as their starter and Sam Darnold as the backup.
The 49ers have now officially punted on the Lance experiment, giving up on the player they traded three first-round picks to acquire in the 2021 NFL Draft after just four starts.
Who's truly to blame for the 49ers' quarterback situation?
ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky recently went on The Rich Eisen Show, detailing his beliefs on how the Lance situation unfolded, initially pointing out how raw the former No. 3 overall pick is, even after two seasons in the NFL.
"Yeah, [Trey Lance] is obviously unknown, right? I think the discouraging, discouraging thing, Rich, is two-fold. One, he's 23 years old right now. And I would sit here and say, like, those are really paramount years," Orlovsky said. "From that age of like 17 to 23 to 24-ish of growth and development, quarterback-wise, I think they're very important and it gives you such an important foundation to what you can become at that spot, both physically and mechanically and football intelligence-wise. And he's missed so much football time during that six or seven-year period."
In addition, Orlovsky believes that Lance has failed to show much development when on the field, pointing out his throwing motion, footwork, and anticipation as areas of concern.
"I think the second thing is, while he's missed that, and that's an unfortunate reality for him, even the moments that he has been on the field, there's still not much, if any, development or growth," Orlovsky said. "The throwing motion is still long… I remember when he was coming out of the draft, Rich, I did this breakdown of his back leg when he gets to the top of his drop and how it's basically straight."
"And instead of being flexed and almost like if you're thinking a boxer, a position of power off of the ground that's still there, still holding onto the football and waiting for guys to get open instead of anticipating for them to get open and maybe not seeing defenders the way that you would hope you would see when it comes to certain coverages."
It all goes back to the 2021 NFL Draft, where the 49ers were widely believed to select Mac Jones early on, and Orlovsky believes that the change in decision to Trey Lance led for an uneven relationship with the quarterback.
"I was one of those people that was dead set on [the pick] being Mac Jones. I never kind of saw that this was the ideal marriage between coach and the quarterback. And also, even when he was the guy and brief period last year, Kyle didn't use him the way that I thought, 'okay, maybe Kyle, he's going to go back to the RG three type of offense' and utilize him as a real big time run [threat] that didn't show itself much."
That leads us to the biggest question: who is to blame for the situation? Orlovsky doubled down, believing it's more so on the quarterback not panning out.
"Who's to blame? These are always tough conversations because you hear about the young man and everyone raves about the human, but that doesn't mean that everyone's meant to be a legit superstar, franchise starting quarterback in the NFL. So it's probably more so maybe he's just not that person. And [with] the injuries, we'll see if I'm wrong on being that person."
Throughout the league, head coach Kyle Shanahan has been well regarded in his ability to put quarterbacks in favorable situations, which led Orlovsky to question the optics of the trade, especially given the location of Dallas, where Cooper Rush has been seen as the primary backup.
"Well again, if Shanahan is the quarterback whisperer and the guy who can develop him best, then maybe Lance just showed his humanity by forcing his way out or saying I want to leave because how's he going to get any of the reps that's required in Dallas, right? I mean like Cooper Rush you could make the argument is the best quarterback, backup quarterback in the NFL. That's that's kind of the interesting aspect of, well, if you're Dallas, you're not giving up a fourth-round pick for nothing. You're giving up a fourth-round pick in hopes that this young man gets on the field somehow, some way, and provides value to your organization, while also hoping that he doesn't play because Dak plays so well and is so healthy."
"So I think for Trey he had to get out of San Francisco because he wasn't going to practice know, maybe Dallas doesn't view Cooper Rush the same way that other people [do]. Maybe we're looking through at Cooper Rush to the advantage of how kind of risk-averse he was last year and how well the defense played in his four starts. But at least it gives him a fresh start and new build with new people to put their own daily, daily opinion upon what type of player he is or could be."
Trey Lance is on to his new destination, where he'll look to carve out a role behind Dak Prescott and Cooper Rush, while the 49ers are moving forward with Brock Purdy, Sam Darnold, and Brandon Allen.