While the 49ers enter a new era with Trey Lance under center, head coach Kyle Shanahan believes the start of this era may look a lot like the beginning of the last one. Shanahan in an appearance on the TK Show podcast with Tim Kawakami compared where Lance is with where Jimmy Garoppolo was in 2019.
It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison since Garoppolo had five starts in 2017, then got three starts in before suffering a season-ending ACL tear the following season. The comp begins with Garoppolo’s 2019 season, and Shanahan believes the 2022 club offers a similar safety net for Lance to overcome some adversity the way the 2019 team did for Garoppolo.
“That’s why I’m so excited about Trey, because I know there’s gonna be some good. I also know there’s gonna be some bad, but I like the situation we’re putting him in where I feel we have a team that if we can stay healthy and build the team around him, I don’t think it all depends on Trey right away,” Shanahan said. “Just like Jimmy in 2019. You know he hadn’t played a lot of football and he was coming off an ACL, and I knew I believed in him, but I didn’t know how he was gonna play. And it took him some time to come off of his injury. Not to mention he hadn’t started many games in his career prior to that. And as he went he had some ups and downs, some good times, some bad times, but we played such good defense around him. We had some young receivers who made some plays. We ran the ball well, and before you knew it we were 8-0, and then he started playing really well. He took us on a stretch that year leading into the playoffs where, in the middle of the season, going to Arizona, I want to say the Rams at home, he played some of his best football and our team allowed him to get to that point.
“I see this going into this season very much to where Trey’s gonna do a lot of good stuff, but he also hasn’t played a lot of ball. And that’s why we can take him through these games and still have a chance to win each game I feel we’re in, without having to put him in all that stuff because he does have a defense he can rely on. He will have a running game he can rely on, and I love our weapons with our receivers, our tight ends, and we’re really excited about our team here to where we don’t have to go into it and say, ‘hey we’ll be good if our (first-time starting) quarterback …’ I don’t think it’s gonna be all about Trey. I think it’s gonna be all about our team, and we’re gonna allow him to move with our team.”
It’s certainly risky plugging in such an inexperienced player on a team that made a run to the NFC championship game last year, but there’s also not a lot of precedent for a No. 3 overall pick stepping into a Super Bowl contender for his first year as a starter.
The 49ers’ roster and their place in the NFL hierarchy is part of why it made sense for them to gamble on Lance. He can’t be terrible, but he also has a much bigger margin for error than he might’ve had on another club picking in the top of the 2021 draft. Any lumps he’s going to take will happen on a team with a defense that can overcome a bad interception, or a run game that can shoulder the load if he’s struggling through a particular stretch.
There’s certainly a base line of quality Lance has to hover around to be effective, but that line is much lower than it would be in a typical No. 3 pick’s circumstances. Consider that Garoppolo in 2019 averaged 219 passing yards per game with seven touchdowns, six interceptions and a 90.8 rating through the first six games. He started turning a corner around the halfway point through the year.
Whether Lance hits that turning point that soon is a pretty sizable question for the 49ers to answer. Shanahan expressed confidence in his young signal caller though.
“The kid’s made of the right stuff and he has the ability to do it,” Shanahan said. “And I hope the fans are patient with him. I think our team’s gonna understand that we got the right type of guy and they’re gonna see some real encouraging stuff out there from him early.”
San Francisco opens training camp July 27, and their first preseason contest is Aug. 12 at home against Green Bay. Lance and the 49ers will begin their regular season in Chicago on Sept. 11. At that point we’ll get a better idea of whether Shanahan’s comparison holds up and Lance looks ready to take the 49ers on a 2019-style run.
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