49ers Take Trey Lance Third Overall: Is He the Future?
After trading up so many spots in the 2021 NFL Draft, the San Francisco 49ers took Trey Lance from North Dakota State with the third overall pick. After this pick was under much speculation as to whether the 49ers could potentially take Mac Jones or Lance there at three, or possibly even surprise the NFL and take Justin Fields.
via ESPN
Lance is looked at as a project player, having not played many big-time talents from a minor program but has a considerable amount of upside. Some say he could potentially be the best of the bunch taken in a few years given time to develop.
The idea behind taking Lance is giving him some time to develop under a guy who’s already led a team in Jimmy Garoppolo. He spent time in New England under Bill Belichick and played behind the great Tom Brady. He knows what it takes to be a good quarterback in this league and is sure to be an excellent example for Lance going forward in his career.
Standing at six feet four inches and over 224 pounds, his NFL comparison would be Bills quarterback Josh Allen. Lance is a gifted signal-caller who can set his protections and read the entire field and be a dual-threat guy if he needs to be.
Coaches rave about this guy’s football IQ and film work, and an offensive genius like Kyle Shanahan could bring the most out of his game. Blending his run-pass talent with a play-action attack could propel Lance into superstardom. He’s one of those guys that puts the work in to understand what is going on the field and knows exactly what his job is and what his teammates are and need to be as well.
Think of Lance potentially being a dual-threat Peyton Manning in a few years under the tutelage of one of the greatest offensive minds the football game has ever seen. One of the only issues he has is having only taken 318 pass attempts with such a small sample size.
Being very new to the quarterback position and being a high selection can be great as you can only get better and you don’t have any bad habits to shake off. However, if you have such a small sample size, it could cause disaster, as you aren’t the guy teams are looking for.
Trey Lance could be the biggest steal of this draft, or he could be the biggest bust. He has that upside, but on the other end of the spectrum, he has about the same amount of chances things not coming together and clicking for him to take the leap and be as good of a pro as he was at the collegiate level.
Trey Lance is for sure a boom or bust prospect if you have ever seen one, but this is why you take guys like this so high, for the potential to be great. Even if he doesn’t pan out, they still have Jimmy G on the roster as a scapegoat just in case.