Your daily San Francisco 49ers news for Tuesday, May 31st, 2022
“And my hunch here is he’s not accurate enough, he didn’t play a lot in college, he played for a dominant run offense, and they’ve got concerns, and they just don’t want to say it,” Cowherd continued. “Can you just play him? Give me tape. Like, why am I not seeing tape? I want to see him play. Why are you keeping Garoppolo? I’m just very suspicious when you keep selling me something.”
Peter King urges ‘a little perspective’ when evaluating 49ers’ Trey Lance
“Not to get all philosophical here, but sometimes, covering football, we cannibalize young players,” King shared. “We want quarterbacks drafted high to morph into Justin Herbert by mid-year-one. Well, Herbert threw 1,273 passes at the highest level of college football. Lance threw 318 in FBS competition, a step down from Herbert’s level. Lance has thrown 101 passes, total, in his age 20 and 21 years as a quarterback. And now a team that was in the NFL Final Four last year is likely to hand him the ball to start opening day. Likely, but not certain. A little perspective would be nice over the next three months, as Lance is put under the OTA/training-camp microscope.”
Branch: Why is 49ers’ Brian Griese looking off the field to help Trey Lance on it? (paywall)
“Griese, who went 4-9 as a starter in 1999, poured himself into a job that demands so much. In retrospect, he wishes didn’t live and die with every throw in his early years of a career that included 83 starts (career record: 45-38) with the Broncos, Buccaneers and Bears. He believes he would have been benefited from a broader perspective extending beyond football that could have relieved his burden.
That’s why Griese began one of his first meetings with the 49ers quarterbacks this spring by asking a series of questions that had nothing to do with three-step drops, formation or coverages. What are the underlying reasons you exist as a football player? Why do you subject yourself to this?”
49ers news: New rule changes for practice squads, injured reserve
“One of the changes now, however, is a practice squad player can be elevated to the game-day roster three times during the regular season without taking a spot on the 53-man roster, whereas this could happen only twice per year during the previous two seasons.
As far as the IR list is concerned, it’ll now last a minimum of four weeks instead of the previous two years’ three games. And instead of unlimited players who could be designated for this kind of return, the max number teams can promote off IR lists is set for eight, broken down by NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo:”
Cohn: The 49ers Secondary Looks Considerably Better than it did in 2021
“Last Tuesday when the 49ers practiced for the first time this offseason in front of the media, Trey Lance completed 18 of 21 passes — excellent for him, not for the defense. But it was mostly 7-on-7 — meaning no pass rush — and Lance completed zero long passes, and 13 of his completions went to tight ends and running backs.
When Lance tested the starting cornerbacks, he was unsuccessful. He targeted Charvarius Ward twice while throwing to Jauan Jennings both times and completed neither pass. Then Lance targeted Emmanuel Moseley once while throwing to Brandon Aiyuk and that pass landed incomplete, too.”
49ers’ Kyle Shanahan compares Brandon Aiyuk’s work ethic this offseason to Deebo Samuel
“Each year guys have, you learn stuff from it and you learn how hard this league is and guys usually go one or two ways each year,” Shanahan said at 49ers OTAs. “They realize, ‘Man, I have to put more work in and prepare for that long haul, or, ‘Man, that was exhausting and I’m going to avoid that as long as I can, until I have to come back again.’ And usually the ones who get better and better are the ones who figure out what they have to do during the season and in the offseason to prepare them for that.
“And I think Brandon’s done that each year. Deebo’s been awesome with that stuff each year. And that’s why usually veterans understand how to make it in this league a little bit better.”