49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan was clear in his assessment of his team’s quarterback situation. Incumbent Jimmy Garoppolo is the starter. No. 3 overall pick Trey Lance is the backup. Garoppolo will work with the first team, and Lance will work with the second team. He pooh-poohed the notion of an open quarterback competition, but he didn’t shut the door with such verve that we can pencil in Garoppolo to start Week 1 in Detroit.
Shanahan on Tuesday in his press conference spelled it out in plain terms when pressed on whether there was a quarterback competition in Santa Clara.
“There’s no open competition right now in terms of they’re getting equal reps with the same group,” he said. “Jimmy’s coming in as the one and Trey’s coming in as the two.”
That’s undoubtedly the case. The 49ers will go into camp with Garoppolo taking all the first-team reps and Lance working with the second unit. Lance will have to earn his shot with the starters, but what Shanahan said prior to that makes it abundantly clear that the rookie is in the mix for the starting job (emphasis added).
“Jimmy, going through OTAs, what he’s done, he’s our best quarterback in the building right now,” Shanahan said. “So, he’ll start out training camp that way. And we’ve got three other guys behind him. Now we’re going to give Trey the first chance, obviously, as the backup. And anytime a guy is playing a lot better than the guy in front of them is when you start to split reps up with that team and start to talk about it. Trey has 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. And we’re going to 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.”
This may not be an open competition for the 49ers’ starting quarterback job, but Garoppolo doesn’t have a stranglehold on the top of the depth chart either.
San Francisco dished out three first-round picks to move up and acquire Lance. He’s a big, fast, strong-armed quarterback who could transform the 49ers’ offense into the type of unstoppable force that makes a club a perennial Super Bowl contender. He’s the type of talent a team wants to get on the field more often than not.
There is very much a path to Lance starting in Week 1 of his rookie campaign, even if it includes a host of obstacles going into camp. Lance is going to get a chance to prove he’s the team’s No. 2 quarterback, and once he’s done that, the coaching staff will assess if he gives them a better shot to win a Super Bowl than Garoppolo.
When Shanahan spoke on July 27 that most certainly isn’t the case. Garoppolo has been to a Super Bowl and came within a few minutes of winning it. He’s an above average NFL starter. Lance has 17 college starts under his belt at the FCS level. If the 49ers had to play a game Sunday there’s no chance Lance would start.
There is a month and a half until the season opener though with three preseason games and a bunch of practices and meetings mixed in between them. If the 49ers are truly open to evaluating whether Garoppolo is their best option to win games in a setting where the mega-talented No. 3 overall pick is sharing a roster with him, then the unopen competition is eventually going to have the door kicked off its hinges.