As the dust settles on this whole Trey Lance situation, John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan need to get in a room together and have an honest conversation. What the heck happened? How do you trade 3 first-round draft picks for a quarterback, make that player your 3rd quarterback on your depth chart after just 4 starts, and then trade him for a 4th round pick?
Why was Lance put behind a player who has 90 turnovers in 56 games played (that’s 1.6 turnovers PER GAME), and in his most recent start looked like Travis Scott trying to perform without autotune? 5/15 for 43 yards with no touchdowns, 2 interceptions, and a 2.8 QB rating were the statistics of Sam Darnold’s latest start, in case you were wondering.
I think the answers to these questions ultimately lie in the way the 49ers view themselves as a football team. The 49ers view themselves as a team that should be winning Superbowls, with their top-heavy and win-now team. This is why they initially went with the Italian Stallion himself, Jimmy Garoppollo, in 2021 instead of prioritizing Lance’s development.
They, as an organization, believe that they don’t have time for developing raw quarterbacks and would rather go with a safer, but way less talented, option. But this hasn’t worked out for them in the slightest. For the last 3 of the past 4 seasons, they have gone to the biggest games in an NFL season and have fallen short every time because of what they have, or don’t have, at the game’s most important position.
If someone on the outside looking in would take a look at how the 49ers have handled Lance, they would assume he was maybe a 4th round pick, not the 3rd overall pick that he was. They would have never guessed that the 49ers invested 3 first-round picks on him. Think about it. The 49ers just have not given Lance the opportunities to show anything. 4 starts aren’t enough to identify a quarterback’s strengths and weaknesses, much less make a decision on his future with the team.
The 49ers thought so less of Lance last season, that they only made the all-in move of acquiring Christian McCaffery after Lance went down and Jimmy Garoppollo was back at the helm as the starting quarterback. Several 49ers players such as fullback Kyle Juszcyk said in the wake of Lance’s injury and Jimmy G’s return as the starter felt more “natural” to the rest of the team, and Shanahan’s repeated showering of praise on Garoppollo, including calling him the best 49ers QB since Steve Young, but more reserved comments towards Lance have turned some heads.
Let’s take a closer look at Kyle Shanahan. In my opinion, Shanahan has been a coward in this whole Lance saga. He made the BOLD move to trade 3 first-round picks for Lance in 2021. But then months later decided to start perhaps one of the most boring and most mistake-prone veteran quarterbacks in the league, all under the pretense of “we are a Superbowl-ready team and we’re going to let Trey sit and learn”.
Sit and learn behind who? Tom Brady? Understandable. Aaron Rodgers? Understandable. But we’re talking about Jimmy Garoppollo. JIMMY GAROPPOLLO. This is a man who steps out of the back of the endzone, plays catch with safeties, and consistently makes the STUPIDEST decisions in the BIGGEST moments. But he’s a “winner”, so it’s all okay. He “took” a team with the number 1 defense and best offensive weapons in the NFL to the Superbowl once so you know what? He’s the best 49ers quarterback since Steve Young, even though the 49ers won an NFC title game with him throwing 8 passes, and Jimmy has MORE thrown interceptions (6) than touchdowns (4) in the playoffs.
Jimmy Garoppollo was a man who made the dumbest decisions in the biggest moments. Even in the regular season, there were multiple games where he looked like a rookie. So why, on God’s green earth, was Trey Lance not given an opportunity to develop even though Jimmy himself looked like a rookie for the majority of the time he was playing? I’ll tell you why.
Kyle Shanahan, as a human behind, is TERRIFIED of failure. He would rather have a veteran who he KNOWS won’t win him a Superbowl, but won’t be terrible either. He would rather have that, over a quarterback who COULD turn out to be elite, but has a very low floor and could just be terrible. He would rather play SAM DARNOLD, who is proven to be a bad NFL quarterback, over Trey Lance just because Lance could possibly turn out to be a bit worse.
The original draft day trade is the worst trade in NFL history, without a doubt. This is a team that traded 3 first-rounder draft picks for a player that they weren’t even sold on. A player that they wouldn’t even play in his rookie season. A player that they think is worse than Sam Darnold. A player that they ended up trading for a 4th round pick.
On August 22 during his media availability, Shanahan was given the opportunity to name his back-up quarterback. He didn’t have the backbone to name Sam Darnold then, rather waiting for a media member to say it for him. What a gutless move. Everything about this Lance situation has portrayed Shanahan in that exact light. A gutless head coach who doesn’t have the nerve to stand up on that podium and tell the world that he thinks that the man he traded 3 first-rounders for is worse than Sam Darnold.
Hours after the news broke of Darnold winning the QB 2 job, the team sent Javon Hargrave and Fred Warner to the podium to speak. Shanahan had the nerve to let 2 defensive players take the heat on that podium for a decision that he made but refuses to even speak about.
No matter what happens with the rest of Lance’s career, history will always remember one thing. Head Coach Kyle Shanahan, General Manager John Lynch, and Owner Jed York made the decision to trade 3 first-round picks for a quarterback they didn’t know how to develop, they obviously didn’t want, and in their eyes isn’t good.
