When the 49ers traded up in the 2021 NFL Draft to select quarterback Trey Lance, head coach Kyle Shanahan did nothing but drool about the Marshall, Minnesota native who had just one year as a college starter under his belt because the pandemic wiped out his 2020 season.
Two years later, Lance’s name is in the rumor mill as a potential trade candidate and from afar, it seems like all the hype about the former North Dakota State star has faded, even though he’s yet to turn 23 years old.
Lance sat behind Jimmy Garoppolo as a rookie before winning the starting job in 2021. His debut was in a brutal rain storm at Chicago. His second start ended on the second drive of the game when he suffered what the team called a “fractured fibula and ligament damage” in his right ankle.
According to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, the 49ers have fielded calls from teams interested in trading for Lance. And the Vikings and 49ers reportedly talked about a deal involving Lance at the NFL scouting combine. The question the 49ers have to answer – and this is only if Brock Purdy is the No. 1 QB as soon as he returns from his injury – is if it makes more sense to trade Lance now, or give him the chance to start while Purdy is out and then trade him before the 2023 trade deadline or in the 2024 offseason.
The 49ers have a real dilemma. On one hand, Lance could start in 2023 and if he is the No. 3 pick they thought he was when they drafted him, they could be sitting on a goldmine.
On the other hand, he’s a risky bet to lead a Super Bowl-caliber roster and when trading for an established QB, like Kirk Cousins, would be as close as they can get to a sure thing. Letting Lance play in 2023 is also risky because if he struggles, it would erase all the hype and potential that exists in the unknown since he has just 31 career pass attempts to his name.
The Vikings would eat a $38M cap hit if they trade Cousins before June 1. If they trade him after June 1, that cap hit drops to $10.25M, according to OverTheCap.
But while cap space is a key factor in any deal involving the Vikings, it’s beside the point that Lance is still only two years removed from the quarterback whisperer himself drafting him over Mac Jones and Justin Fields.
“I think either one would have been a good decision,” Shanahan said of Lance and Jones during an appearance on The Ringer’s “Flying Coach” podcast a few months after the 2021 draft. “Like, you’re not moving up if you don’t feel good about both of those. And if it had just been one then we probably would have said no – well, we probably wouldn’t have said that because it’s still risky. But we really – either one of those players would have been a great pick, in my opinion. And the third guy with Justin, he would have been a great pick. It’s just what direction do you want to go.
“There’s so many things that go into it and you’ve got to make that decision. But I didn’t blame people at all for thinking it would be Mac Jones. Because Mac Jones deserves that. He’s that good of a player and he put it on tape for a whole year, and everyone did want to relate me to Kirk [Cousins] because that’s the only guy that I was openly going for as a free agent, so people talk about him.
“But Trey brought another element. And it doesn’t mean he’s better or worse. It just means he brought another element that over the course of us studying it really intrigued us, and that’s a direction I would love to go and have always wanted to go. But the guy has got to be able to do it all, and Trey sold us that he could and that’s why I’m excited to work with him and it’s up to us to get him to do it.”
Eleven months later, after Lance learned behind Garoppolo as a rookie, Shanahan again raved about the young QB ahead of last year’s training camp.
“The biggest thing with Trey that people have to realize is he is younger. He has more horsepower inside of him than I think he even knows of. Just from the whole talent, but also what he’s made of, how intelligent he is. I think he’s going to be able to overcome adversity. I do believe he’s going to handle this pressure,” said Shanahan. “That’s what inspires me the most with (Lance).
Go back before the 2021 draft. According to NBC Sports, 49ers general manager John Lynch said he recalled a night when Shanahan called him and said, “Hey, man, this Trey Lance, I’m really feeling this film.”
At NDSU, Lance started the 2019 season and led the Bison to the FCS national championship. He accounted for 42 touchdowns – 28 passing and 14 rushing – while throwing zero interceptions.
