Less than one week into the 2022 season, former 49ers offensive coordinator and NFL coach Mike Martz already seems to have made up his mind about Trey Lance.
In an interview with The 33rd Team immediately after the 49ers’ 19-10 loss to the Chicago Bears on Sunday, Martz provided a scathing review of Lance’s first performance as the team’s starting quarterback that wasn’t received well on the internet.
“I want [the 49ers’] eyeballs,” Martz said. “I’ve never seen anything about this kid that was encouraging at all. He really has to plant himself to make a good throw. He’s not a quick-decision guy. Every shot in the rear about him being a mobile guy, making plays with his feet -- he looked like a fullback stumbling around trying to run the ball, to me.”
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Well, OK then.
And it didn’t stop there. Martz said the rain was no excuse for Lance’s incomplete passes (he was 13-for28) and declared he “never liked him” and still doesn’t like him. Even when it seemed like he maybe was tossing the 22-year-old a compliment, it turned into a diss.
“I know this: He can only go up,” Martz said. “He can only get better because you can’t get any worse than what he did today.”
Martz is best known for helping lead the then-St. Louis Rams to their first Super Bowl title as offensive coordinator during the 1999 season. He also served as head coach for the Rams and Detroit Lions before joining the 49ers as OC for one season in 2008.
As a former OC for the Bears, too, Martz has ties to both teams that faced off on Sunday.
San Francisco 49ers
And it wasn’t just Lance’s performance that Martz dunked on, either. He said Bears quarterback Justin Fields, who walked away with a win, was “less than remarkable,” called him awful and said he deflated the team.
But it’s safe to say 49ers and Bears fans alike disagreed with his assessment, as evidenced by the epic ratio on a tweet featuring the clip of Martz. The video has amassed over 150,000 views on Twitter and nearly 1,000 responses as of Tuesday afternoon, most of which condemn Martz’s comments.
Lance took accountability after the season-opening loss, starting off his postgame press conference with a list of everything he thought he did wrong. So it's safe to say he'll have no problem tuning out just another addition to the outside noise he has faced ever since the 49ers drafted him No. 3 overall in 2021.
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But that’s the beautiful thing about the internet -- with one opinion usually comes thousands more in response.
And everyone is entitled to their own, no matter how wrong or right it might be.