Trey Lance may well find himself as the starting quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers before the season's out, but he clearly won't be starting training camp that way based on what head coach Kyle Shanahan said Tuesday.
The 49ers obviously plan on Lance eventually being the starter over incumbent Jimmy Garoppolo after trading up to select him with the third overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. But as of now, the job remains Garoppolo's to lose.
"There's no open competition right now in terms of they're getting equal reps with the same group," Shanahan told reporters Tuesday, one day before the start of camp. "Jimmy's coming in as the one and Trey's coming in as the two."
Lance was reportedly impressive in his limited practice time with the 49ers during organized team activities (OTAs) in the spring. But Garoppolo still has the edge over the rookie, as well as backups Josh Rosen and Nate Sudfeld.
"Going through OTAs and what he's done, he's our best quarterback in the building right now," Shanahan said of Garoppolo. "So he'll start out training camp that way, and we've got three other guys behind him."
Lance, as Shanahan mentioned, will start camp as the No. 2 quarterback behind Garoppolo. Shanahan emphasized that one of the backups would have to push Garoppolo before the team gave any consideration to making a change at the position.
"We're going to give Trey the first chance obviously as the backup, and anytime a guy's playing a lot better than the guy in front of him is when you start to split reps up with that team and start to talk about it," Shanahan said. "But Trey's had seven practices with us and I haven't seen him for 40 days, so I'm not thinking about that right now. Just having Jimmy going, he's our starter. You give all those guys every opportunity to improve, and if someone ever looks like they give us a better chance to win, we'll make that decision then."
Lance needs to sign his rookie contract with the 49ers first, which hadn't happened as of Tuesday morning. Lance and New York Jets quarterback Zach Wilson were the only two unsigned first-round picks in the NFL as of Tuesday morning, but 49ers general manager John Lynch seems hopeful a deal will get done before the start of camp.
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