Trey Lance: The apple of Kyle Shanahan's eye: What makes him so enticing? + What is left in the free agent bargain bin?

Trey Lance becomes the first player born in the new millennium to be drafted. The future is now, old man.

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Santa Clara, CA - Trey Lance, QB, San Francisco 49ers. After a month long wait, following the 49ers’ trade up to #3 overall, the 49ers finally ended all the speculation, dousing the Mac Jones fire - selecting the North Dakota State product.

Lance was one of the players flying under the radar in terms of the 49ers draft process, up until right before the draft when reports surfaced that the 49ers decision was down to Mac Jones or Trey Lance. In reality, it was Trey Lance. All along. Kyle Shanahan had already fallen in love with Trey Lance in January, sending his tape to John Lynch who watched the tape til 2:30 AM. The 6 foot 4 inch, 224 pound QB blew Kyle Shanahan away on film, and when Shanahan was able to speak with the QB, he was even more impressed. Albert Breer had a great piece today, detailing the 49ers true draft process:

“Hey, man, this Trey Lance—I’m getting real invested in this and the possibilities are really cool, where we can go,” Shanahan told Lynch. “I really like it. I want to send you some stuff. I want to see if you feel the same way.”

The next morning, a bunch of Lynch’s coworkers made comments to him about how tired he looked. It was because he’d been up until 2:30 the night before, going through Lance’s tape and Shanahan’s notes, and matching them with his own.

“Kyle, what I love about him, I think it’s what makes him good,” Lynch said. “He really gets a refined vision for, ‘O.K., here’s how I would use this guy.’ So you watch the tape and the comments that go with it, and I always think of comments throughout the year he makes. Our comments were really aligning. What we try to do is not look at each other’s comments until we both do the evaluation. Then when you combine them, and when they’re very aligned, now we’re cooking with gas.”

Indeed, there was conviction with Shanahan and Lynch when it came to this draft pick.

San Francisco coach Kyle Shanahan convened a meeting to work toward a decision that would close the book on the 2021 draft’s biggest story line. And out of nowhere, Shanahan, so to speak, popped the question on the 49ers’ personnel chief.

“Hey,” he asked, “you ready to roll with Trey?”

“You aren’t f------ with me, are you?” John Lynch responded.

“And I don’t say that word,” Lynch said over the phone late Saturday afternoon. “That was out of character for me. But I was very excited.”

A lot has been made of Trey Lance’s athleticism, his running ability. A popular albeit inaccurate comparison for Lance has been former 49ers signal-caller Colin Kaepernick. When you watch Trey Lance’s highlight reel, most come away with “great runner, but what about his passing ability?”. Know one thing: what you see on the highlight reel on Trey Lance is just the surface of what’s really going on.

Kyle Shanahan drafted Trey Lance because of his ability to pass the football. Let’s make that clear.

By then, Lynch says he and Shanahan believed the guy was a fit for the offense, which “was about the natural rhythm that Trey plays the game with. The things that make for a good passer. And that’s what most of it was on. Then kind of the cherry on top was—the ‘And we can do all this’—was he’s a very, very powerful athlete.” They also had considered the upside the last part of that provided.

Before we jump into the evaluation, let’s evaluate the actual decision. Drafting Trey Lance over a high-pedigree prospect like Justin Fields, a high-production player like Mac Jones - it takes guts. It’s risky. But there’s a reason.

Many comments have been made: isn’t Lance just a “raw” version of Justin Fields? Why draft the guy that isn’t as accurate as the other two?

Because quarterbacking isn’t only about accuracy and athleticism.

In terms of decision-making, it’s not even close. Right away, 30 passing TDs and 1 INT sticks out. You cannot just attribute that to the level of competition - otherwise, quarterbacks would do it all the time. Carson Wentz in his best season threw 25 TDs, 10 INTs - at North Dakota State, in the same system. And he went at #2 overall. Not only were the interception numbers historically low, the bad throw rate (how many passes could be deemed as interceptable) was also the lowest. Lance posted a turnover-worthy play rate of just 1.7% in 318 passing attempts - an incredibly low ratio. Kyle Shanahan stressed that Lance consistently made the right decision, whether it was throwing it, throwing it away, tucking it and running, extending the play, even taking the sack.

Something that’s hard to learn? Hard to improve? Decision-making. Look at Jameis Winston. Look at Jimmy G. Look at Jared Goff. You can even look at guys like Patrick Mahomes (2nd most interceptable passes this season), or Josh Allen (most interceptable passes this season) - even as good as they are, their decision-making is still suspect. Trey Lance on the other hand, had just six total passes deemed as interceptable in his career - on 318 pass attempts. The lowest bad throw percentage in the class by a significant margin. He had 48 total touchdowns, passing or rushing at NDSU. He had one interception, and two lost fumbles. Simply put, you won’t find better ball security - he is not going to turn the ball over. That by itself is incredibly valuable.

Again, for an inexperienced player, the amount of natural quarterback instinct that Lance possesses is really promising. His pocket presence is incredible - he possesses the rare eyes in the back of his head, a feel for pressure in the pocket - something that most QBs never end up exhibiting, and something that only the best quarterbacks have. Pocket presence is very, very hard to improve - often only gained through many years of experience. Jimmy Garoppolo sat for years behind Tom Brady, the king of pocket presence, and he still does this. But Lance already consistently feels blindside pressure, he knows when the pressure is just about to get to him, and that’s when he moves. It’s rare.

Trey Lance posted the second highest passer rating under pressure in this draft - barely behind Mac Jones. He had a 117 passer rating under pressure with 72 total dropbacks under pressure in his past season (2019). For reference:

• Mac Jones: 122.7 on 73 dropbacks pressured

• Zach Wilson: 98.5 on 79 dropbacks pressured

• Trevor Lawrence: 84.8 on 89 dropbacks pressured

• Justin Fields: 40.5 on 70 dropbacks pressured

He posted the second highest adjusted accuracy while outside the pocket in the draft class - and it shows up on tape. Lance also throws with anticipation - not as much as Mac Jones does, but certainly more than Fields (though Fields doesn’t throw with anticipation more because of scheme). His reaction time, ability to get the ball out quicker - there are far more factors that go into quarterback play than just accuracy and athleticism. Is accuracy the most important? Absolutely.

But there are certain skills that are learnable and skills that are not. Accuracy is improvable if there’s something to actually improve - for example, mechanically. It’s a common misconception that accuracy is what it is - and yes, often it’s true. But one must actually look at why. Over recent history, passers like:

• Josh Allen

• Lamar Jackson

• Justin Herbert

• DeShaun Watson

• Patrick Mahomes

• Carson Wentz

All of them saw massive improvements in accuracy going from college to the NFL. Why?

Well, it’s different from Josh Rosen, Sam Darnold, or even Mitchell Trubisky. The latter of whom were fitting the traditional belief that accuracy is unimprovable. Darnold had fine mechanics albeit a wonky release. Josh Rosen had perfect mechanics. But both were inaccurate regardless of their throwing mechanics, lower and upper body. There was nothing to improve in that area, so of course they haven’t got more accurate in the NFL. With Trubisky, he’s got a clear footwork issue that affects his accuracy. But unlike the six quarterbacks above, Trubisky has chose not to, or has been unable to fix that issue in the NFL.

Whereas guys like Allen, Jackson, Herbert, etc. - all had the same issue of inconsistent lower-body mechanics coming out of college. All of them improved their lower-body mechanics entering the NFL and have crushed it - with Allen seeing the most drastic improvement, and Herbert seeing the quickest improvement. Last year, PFF said Herbert “can’t play”. Just straight up cannot play. It certainly didn’t end up that way.

Lance can clearly improve his consistency of his mechanics especially in his lower-body (in fact, he already may have done so - based on limited footage we’ve seen of Lance at the pro-days). That will likely make him a lot more accurate. People point to Josh Allen, but this isn’t that much of an accuracy fix as it was for Allen. Allen is an outlier because it took him so long, but again it’s not unheard of. Lance has a bigger hill to climb accuracy-wise, especially downfield, than some of his counterparts above - but this is not going to be an Allen-like endeavor of improving accuracy, or even a Lamar Jackson-type of overhaul - lack of context would have you believe that. But Lance’s tape and therefore his data is all from his redshirt freshman season, as a 19 year old - with barely any experience in high school either. He only began playing QB officially in 9th grade! We haven’t seen the natural progression of accuracy that a lot of QBs see from their freshman to junior years - because Lance hasn’t got to show it. That’s the risk factor: will he improve it? We don’t know until we see him on the field, but Kyle Shanahan certainly thinks so.

He’s raw in the sense of experience, but I don’t know if he’s raw in the skills required.

It’s hard to learn anticipation - another trait you either have or you don’t. Lance has it.

For The Niners @forthe9ers

Great anticipation. Lance starts his motion before the WR even slows down to make their break.

It’s hard to become a better “processor”, going through progressions correctly and quickly. Leaders in first-read progression percentage in the 2019-20 season:

• Ryan Fitzpatrick: 84.7%

• Mitchell Trubisky: 84.6%

• Cam Newton: 84.5%

• Andy Dalton: 82.4%

• Kyle Allen: 82.1%

• Jeff Driskel: 81%

• Jimmy Garoppolo: 80.9%

• Dwayne Haskins: 80.5%

• Josh Rosen: 79.5%

• Jameis Winston: 79.1%

Winston has had four years to fix his issues. We know the story with Trubisky, Rosen and Haskins. Garoppolo sat for years behind the greatest QB-HC duo in history, and learned from the best offensive playcaller in football. Dalton and Newton are grizzled veterans, Fitzpatrick is the definition of a journeyman.

It’s possible to learn this skill, but to act as if it’s easier than improving accuracy isn’t correct. It’s just as hard. Lance is great in this category - despite his first read, like many college QBs, being open quite a bit - Lance is very good at getting through his progressions quickly. He gets through all four of his progressions in roughly (a larger estimate than what it likely is) three and a half seconds. He then resets and finds his open guy on the move. This is perfect.

Learnable vs. non-learnable skills often are the hardest to evaluate. Lance possesses a lot of the non-learnable skills and traits. His intangibles and athletic profile aside, Lance’s release speed, arm strength, and spin that he gets on the ball are all great. He already has natural pocket presence, elite decision-making, ability to go through progressions. His internal clock in the pocket is quite good. These are all traits that are very hard to learn after getting in the league. His short accuracy was the best in this year’s class and last year’s class, statistically (per Derrik Klassen).

I believe that Kyle Shanahan chose Trey Lance because he believes that Lance’s mechanical fixes and downfield accuracy are things he can fix. What he chose Lance for is because Lance possesses so many traits and skills that are almost always unteachable. Pocket presence, processing, physical talent, decision-making, playmaking - all things Lance excels at. These are things that come at a premium in the NFL. Yes, the downfield accuracy, specifically in the intermediate range is troubling. But is Shanahan going to pick Lance if he doesn’t think either of these two things?

• It’s a lot better than it looks?

• It’s improvable.

Picking Lance over Justin Fields would suggest Kyle, again, believes he can fix Lance’s downfield accuracy over Fields’ decision-making. Maybe Lance’s accuracy doesn’t even need to be overhauled - perhaps he will see the natural progression of accuracy that many QBs see - no QB is a finished product at 19 (when all of Lance’s film is from). Either way, he’s confident it will improve.

Picking Lance over Jones suggests, again, that Lance’s mental game is on par with Jones - and while Jones might be more accurate right now, he again believes Lance can and will improve. And that makes the bet a lot more enticing when you look at Lance’s potential as a player rather than Jones.

Perry @AnthonyRMPerry

This throw is unbelievable. Absolute freaking DIME from Trey Lance #49ers

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Free-agency: Who is left?

After the draft, the 49ers still have holes especially in terms of depth. The 49ers are all set at:

• QB

• RB

• OL

• DL

• LB

• S

But even as the 49ers chose not one, but two corners in the draft - the CB depth is still quite thin. Ambry Thomas was my personal favorite (non-Lance) pick - an ultra-athletic, long corner who’s physical at the LOS. And Deommodore Lenoir can play too. But still, the CB depth looks like this right now:

Jason Verrett, Emmanuel Moseley, Ambry Thomas, K’Waun Williams, Deommodore Lenoir… that’s it.

The rest of the DBs on the roster are fringe, including 2019 6th round pick Tim Harris - who we have yet to really see take a meaningful snap. The 49ers could really use a non-rookie/fringe player behind Verrett and Moseley.

Steven Nelson is my pick here. Nelson was a cap casualty for the Steelers - but he’s only 28. He’s missed just two games in the past three seasons and has been very good in that span - even grading out as a top 10 corner in man coverage in 2019. Nelson was again serviceable this season, allowing 43 receptions on 76 targets - while snagging two picks and notching 42 tackles over 15 games.

Nelson would be a great add to the secondary - either as a back-up, or even as a starter - Nelson could definitely push for a role next to Verrett, over Moseley.

While Richard Sherman is the popular option - Sherman was outstanding in 2019… his health is in question, he’s 32 years old - and he’s limited to playing specifically at one corner spot. And we don’t know how his calf injury from last year affected him but Sherman clearly was not the dominant coverage guy last season, that he was in 2019. He would still be a good add, but I would add Steven Nelson over him.

Another issue is at TE - with Jordan Reed retiring, knowing that Kittle isn’t exactly the most durable guy, the 49ers need to improve their depth here. My choice would be Trey Burton. Burton has been a good TE2 for quite some time, and he’s a very good blocker. Athletic, versatile, and can block - he can even fill in at FB if needed. Burton has struggled with health, as he had a sports hernia surgery last season - but all indications are that he is currently healthy.

Finally at WR - the clear #1 should be Kenny Stills - still a good deep threat who can play inside or outside. Stills would be the ideal fit as slot WR in this offense as a field-stretcher.

The 49ers have a contending-level roster on paper - but we also said that last year. Point being, nobody knows what’s going to happen. But it’s certainly an exciting time to be a 49ers fan.

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