I don’t like San Francisco dealing Trey Lance for a fourth-round pick—likely, a very late fourth-round pick. I understand why it happened; the Niners get a breath of fresh air without the ignominy of a horrible 2021 draft trade and pick hanging over their heads during what they think could be a championship season. They get to move on and drive for a Super Bowl without the black cloud of the Lance failure hanging over their heads. But -- and this is a gigantic but -- I wrote last week that Kyle Shanahan has had to use three quarterbacks due to injury in four of his six years as coach. This trade means he’s more comfortable with the three of Brock Purdy, Sam Darnold and Brandon Allen (2-7 with 56.7 percent accuracy in four seasons) than Purdy, Darnold and Lance. I really don’t get that.
Shanahan and GM John Lynch both said with Lance losing out to Darnold for the backup job, there wasn’t going to be a chance for Lance to practice or play much at all. Why? Why can’t a smart coach, knowing Lance’s unique situation, figure a way to get him some experience, mostly in practice but who knows? Maybe during games depending on the situation. Jimmy Garoppolo practicing on a side field a year ago at this time wasn’t ideal either. But one thing Kyle Shanahan’s been good at in his six years coaching this team is juggling quarterbacks. He could have done it here—and should have. You do not throw away something you believed in so strongly just two years ago. And make no mistake: The Niners can crow about being surprised they got a fourth-round pick for Lance. But it’s a terrible return, even for this damaged used car. The Cowboys have drafted 129th in the fourth round of the last two drafts. You’re happy with getting the 129th pick, or thereabouts, for a guy you staked the franchise on two years ago?
Over the 2021, 2022 and 2023 drafts, the 49ers traded 12th, 29th, 101st and 29th picks for the privilege of taking Lance. One of those picks was used to choose Micah Parsons, one of football’s best defensive players.
So the word on the Bay Area street is that Shanahan had given up on Lance and valued Allen more if he had an emergency in 2023. If that is true, then if I’m Niners owner Jed York, I call Kyle into a meeting one day this week after the rosters are cut. I say: “I love you. I think you’re great at your job. However, you wasted three first-round draft picks on a quarterback you just tossed out in the trash after two injury-plagued seasons. That is not acceptable. We need to figure a way to put some guardrails in place so that this never happens again. We don’t have to do it now. But I want you to know that as the steward of the franchise I’m going to take a more active role after the season in making sure something like this doesn’t happen again. No matter how well we do this year, losing three first-round picks in succession is eventually going to be felt significantly on this team.”
I don’t get this from Dallas’ perspective either … unless deep down Jerry and Stephen Jones are questioning whether Dak Prescott is either the long-term quarterback or can be re-signed after his contract expires in 2024. Cooper Rush went 4-1 when Prescott was hurt last year, and I doubt sincerely Mike McCarthy would start Lance over Rush in 2023 if Prescott gets hurt again. So this is a play to get Lance in the building and see what he’s got, I guess. But how does Lance get more experience in Dallas this year when he shows up to learn a brand new offense on Aug. 26, coming into a team with every bit the championship expectation that the Niners had?
Dallas could exercise Lance’s fifth-year option for 2025 after this season, but that makes sense (at an estimated $28 million guaranteed) only if he’d have a good chance to play in 2025. And how would they know if that was a wise move if he doesn’t play in 2023? That just adds to the illogic of this.
So this doesn’t make sense to me, from either side. To be fair, I’ll give Shanahan a chance to explain how the Lance thing all went sideways, from his Friday night press conference. It’s lightly edited.
“We had the 12th pick in the draft, after that Covid year,” Shanahan said. “But we thought we had a really good team and we didn’t think we’d have a chance again to get close to that top area to take a quarterback in the top 10. We looked at everything between [their pick at 12th overall and three, where Miami sat] and we got that and we took our shot. Something we believed in, a person we believed in. Hoping he could play more his first year. We knew he wouldn’t come in and just take it over from Jimmy [Garoppolo], but we were hoping to mix him in and kind of give him some experience. But once he broke his finger [in August 2021], it just got tougher for him as time went. We knew we’d commit to him the next year, which we did. We knew he wasn’t fully ready in every aspect, but we knew he had a skill set that we could put some stuff together to give him the chance to compete and grow with a good team as he developed as a full quarterback. He got hurt in the first quarter of the second game, which kind of set that back. Now we’re here in the third year. And we still got a good team. We thought it would be Trey. I think we got pretty fortunate falling into still having a rookie quarterback [Purdy] that happened to be the seventh-round pick.”
All true. But coaches are paid to be problem-solvers. Shanahan’s been a good one. With what’s at stake, it stuns me he’d rather have Brandon Allen as his insurance policy than the guy he judged to have franchise talent two years ago. If I’m a Niners fan, it worries me too. This feels too knee-jerk, impatient to the max. And it puts tremendous pressure on Purdy to play as he did in his magical eight-game run last season. To me, this was a trade that didn’t need to be made. And shouldn’t have been made.
Read more in Peter King’s full Football Morning in America column.