National Football League

Will Trey Lance become the 49ers' starter going forward?

Updated Oct. 4, 2021 7:36 p.m. ET

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Trey Lance's first completion Sunday went for a touchdown.

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Now, he tossed a slew of incompletions both before and after the 76-yard bomb to Deebo Samuel, but a quick glance through Lance's stat line (9-for-18, 157 yards, two TDs) from the 49ers' 28-21 loss to Seattle shows the production of a young signal-caller who's beginning to learn the NFL ropes.

He's young. And at times, he's naive. But he does seem to be learning.

Lance stepped in to relieve an injured Jimmy Garoppolo in the third quarter of Sunday's outing. Garoppolo went down with a calf ailment on the team's first drive of the second half and was unable to return. He's set to have an MRI to determine the injury's severity Monday. 

Garoppolo, who revealed that he initially felt his calf tightening on the team's first drive (he went 6-for-6 for 70 yards and a TD in that series), said that he didn't believe he was dealing with an Achilles tear but did acknowledge that the damage could cost him some time on the sideline.

"It feels like just the calf right now," Garoppolo said postgame. "I'm hopeful it will just be a couple of weeks or something like that. It's just tough. I've been in this situation too many times, and it's getting real old."

These statements certainly weren't hyperbole for Garoppolo. Since joining the Niners in 2017, he has been an injured-reserve regular, twice serving substantial time on the shelf with a torn ACL in 2018 and a high ankle sprain last season. It was his increasingly long list of physical limitations that drove his team to go young in this year's draft and trade up to take Lance.

Now, given Jimmy G's current health, Lance's time might come sooner rather than later.

The North Dakota State product certainly possesses the tools to be a playmaking machine that can give opposing defenses fits. He's a speed merchant at the QB spot, but teams giving too much attention to his legs could also get burned by his rocket of a right arm. 

These were the abilities the Niners brooded over when scouting him. But as is the case with all young QBs, Lance will experience growing pains as he morphs into the starting centerpiece San Francisco hopes he can be.

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Just when that will be though, remains to be seen. But Skip Bayless believes it's coming — and fast.

"I'm all about Trey Lance," Bayless said on Monday's episode of "Undisputed." 

"I'm just eye-testing, saying ‘I’ll take that guy.' [He's] 6-4, 225 pounds, and he can flat-out move. He can shimmy-shake you, he can run over you, he can run around you. He's got extreme mobility, and he's got a bazooka arm. He's got high football IQ. He has extreme work ethic. If you give that to Kyle Shanahan, the run game becomes indefensible."

Lance rushed seven times for 41 yards in the affair Sunday.

Shannon Sharpe agreed with Bayless' assessment, adding that he believes Lance will become the best QB of his draft class.

"It's kind of like Lamar," Shannon said. 

"Lamar Jackson is the head of the [Ravens'] running game. I'm not saying [Lance] is going to be Lamar Jackson, but he has an element you really can't account for. I'm going to trust Kyle Shanahan, and his ability to call plays and put his quarterback in the best possible situation. He'll do a lot more diagramed quarterback runs because he has a quarterback that has the athleticism to make those kind of plays. I saw what he did with some lesser-tier quarterbacks and got them to produce 300-yard passing games. And they're not nearly as talented as Trey Lance."

Sharpe added that Lance should be the starter both now and for the foreseeable future.

"There is no turning back," he said. "You gave up those draft picks. Unless Trey Lance gets injured, you see what you have with him."

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National Football League

Trey Lance

San Francisco 49ers

Jimmy Garoppolo

Skip Bayless

Shannon Sharpe

Skip and Shannon: Undisputed