The Trey Lance era in San Francisco proved to be short lived, as the 49ers traded the former third-overall pick to the Cowboys last night. While the quarterback went from franchise cornerstone to QB3 in only two years, general manager John Lynch still had high praise for Lance following the deal.
[RELATED: 49ers Trade QB Trey Lance to Cowboys]
“Really hard day, such a wonderful young man,” Lynch said last night (via NFL.com’s Coral Smith). “We took a shot and it didn’t work out. We own that. We take accountability for it. But I think, as I think you guys do, his story is still very much unwritten. I’m excited for Trey. Dallas stepped up and really wanted him and they came after him. And I think it’s going to be a great landing spot for him. I can tell everybody, it wasn’t for lack of effort on Trey’s part or on our part, that it didn’t work. Circumstances took hold and he struggled through injuries and this team’s ready to win. We like our quarterback room. We like Brock Purdy a lot, we like Sam Darnold and we like Brandon Allen. So we wish Trey all the best in Dallas. We’ll always care about that young man and admire his work ethic and the person that he is.”
As ESPN’s Adam Schefter tweeted this morning, Lance actually requested to be traded earlier this week after learning he’d be the third quarterback behind Purdy and Darnold. The young QB wasn’t necessarily looking for a chance to start elsewhere; according to 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan, Lance was happy with being the top backup in a different situation.
“He told us that he would like another opportunity to go somewhere where he had a chance to be the No. 2,” Shanahan said (via NFL.com). “We thought we got some good deals for him; there was a number of teams involved. To end up getting the fourth was a little better than we anticipated and clears up a lot of money and allows a better situation for him, too.”
Unsurprisingly, the Cowboys weren’t the only suitor for Lance’s services. Dianna Russini tweets that the Bills, Ravens, and Lions were among the teams that showed interest in the young signal caller. Russini adds that the 49ers intended to trade Lance to the AFC, but the organization pivoted to an NFC foe when they only received offers of conditional fifth-round picks (that were more likely to be sixth-round picks). Schefter notes that the 49ers began fielding offers for Lance on Thursday, and the Cowboys separated themselves from the pack on Friday.
Lynch and Shanahan weren’t the only members of the 49ers to speak kindly of Lance. Purdy mentioned how his former teammate helped him during his improbable run late last season.
“Going in last year and then him just being by my side from the get-go — sideline, meetings, in the locker room, wherever we are at — man, he’s been a real one,” Purdy said (via Cam Inman of the Mercury News). “…Lance helped me come into the league and welcome me with open arms and showed me the ropes to this whole thing. So can’t tell you how grateful I am for him and to have him in my life and to be here with him. So, forever grateful for Trey.”
Attention will now shift to Dallas, where Lance will serve as the backup to Dak Prescott. According to ESPN’s Todd Archer, the Cowboys had a second-round grade on the quarterback during the 2021 draft. That’s obviously a far cry from the third-overall pick, but it still goes to show that the organization believed the prospect could at least be a worthy NFL quarterback.
All you need in life is an opportunity and he still has one with the Cowboys. Good luck to him in Dallas.
Everyone was offering conditional 5ths, most likely to be 6ths… so Cowboys offer a 4th. Jerry gonna Jerry.
Especially when he has 3 other QBs more ready to be QB2 right now.
Cooper Rush has already proven to be a solid 2. Head scratcher for sure.
Uhhh no, they just have 1 QB who is ready to be QB2: Cooper Rush. Grier has been underwhelming and wasn’t going to even make the 53 man roster. As for having a third QB better suited as QB2, who in the world would that be?
Yes, the Cowboys offered a 4th (likely a late 4th rounder) not a conditional 5th; that’s why they landed him. This is a low cost/high reward bet for a guy that was widely considered a first (or second) rounder two short years ago. The Bills and the Lions were interested for a reason.
He got him. A 5th doesn’t get him. I don’t like Jerry Jones but give the guy credit, when he wants something, he spends what he needs
Everyone was offering conditional 5ths, most slikely to be 6ths… so Cowboys offer a 4th. Jerry gonna Jerry.
I wanna be optimistic about this kid, but this is a big L for him not beating out Darnold and Brandon Allen – in a Kyle Shanahan system.
A fourth rounder is about right.
“Lynch and Shanahan weren’t the only members of the 49ers to speak kindly of Lance. Purdy mentioned how his former teammate helped him during his improbable run late last season”.
Apparently these guys were all honor students at Roger Goodell’s Academy of Bullsh—ing.
So disappointed the Vikings didn’t even make an offer. The kid went to NDSU and grew up in Marshall, MN. Cousins is gone after this year. They couldn’t offer better than a 4th round pick?!
Shanahan’s quote is interesting.
“To end up getting the fourth was a little better than we anticipated and clears up a lot of money and allows a better situation for him, too.”
It sounds like the 9ers assumed that they would have to dump Lance (in whatever form that took) for no real return. That tells me two things: either they knew that the league knew how hopeless the Lance situation was for them, or they themselves thought that there was no possible use for Lance in their organization at any point going forward. Compare the second situation to, say, Green Bay’s with Jordan Love. In somewhat similar, but slightly different and less costly circumstances, Love’s rookie deal ended without him having played meaningful action. Green Bay signed Love to a short deal to allow the opportunity to start. Love had comparable experience to Lance, and Green Bay felt there was a chance that he would give them a return on their investment. Lance, instead, was moved down the depth chart and traded. It’s hard to say that Shanahan and/or Lynch thought there was much of anything that they could do with him, from how it looks. Is that due to Lance’s ability to play in general, or the ability to run their offense? No idea.
The other observation is what Dallas traded. Either the Cowboys did not know how low other teams’ offers were, or they did and wanted Lance enough to offer that much more to sweeten the pot. Now, a fourth rounder is not a huge trade, and the Cowboys have a quarterback who has had some midlevel to minor injury issues, so backups run as more important needs than for some teams. But a lot of more proven backups could be had for less. You have to think that they did value Lance’s potential enough to make that trade. As noted, they’re an NFC team, so the extra incentive was probably necessary to sway the 9ers into making the deal, but it still requires Dallas to evaluate the proposition and decide that it’s worth it. Dallas thinks one of three things about Trey Lance: either the 9ers are wrong about Lance, or Dallas’ staff is better than San Francisco’s at development, or simply that he just needs a fresh start. If they agree that Lance won’t ever develop into at least a competent backup, as San Fran did, then the trade was unnecessary. There has to be some theoretical value at where this leads, otherwise there’s no point.
Luckily for them, it’s hard to be too unhappy with it either way. A fourth rounder is not much, especially when you can get a former top three pick for it. It’s not a franchise changing gamble…as opposed to, say, using two firsts and spending a third one to draft someone that doesn’t finish out his rookie deal. Hopefully for Lance, he can move on from that time in San Francisco and deliver on his potential. He seems individually like a good person, which is all too often lost in the schemes of football. It was have been very interesting, I think, to have seen him end up in Baltimore. If he shows enough, maybe it could still happen later on.
I’d probably have a painful brain cramp if I started analyzing things to the extend you do…lol. How many keyboards do you wear out in a year?
Through use? None. Through suicide? Several.
I, for all of that long winded typing, forgot to say that that was obviously all speculation on my part. I want to be clear when I admit that, and I that I could be wrong. That’s why I chose to use the word “interesting” instead of “telling”. As always, and as is frequent, I could be more wrong than whomever covered pizza with pineapples.
I draw the line at pizza smoothies.
He could be a great backup in Monkens ravens offense. Damn that would have been cool
With the caveat that we have to see Monken’s version of the Ravens’ offense, I have to agree that that would be very intriguing.
Yea
Will these GM’s ever learn to stop reaching on these guys? They just can’t help themselves.
Now hearing that Sudfeld suffered a torn ACL on Friday night, brings sensibility to the Lions having shown interest in Trey Lance. He would have still likely only been a QB3 however.