Trey Lance was thrown into the fire on Sunday, and there was no mistaking that fact. Lance looked lost at sea and jittery at times, but also showed what a dynamic playmaker he is. There were plenty of occasions when Lance took off running and made something happen.
Now, plenty of those occasions had opportunities for him to throw, but given the fact that he is a 21-year-old rookie who only found out he’d be starting the second half as it was coming to a close, well, the jitters are to be expected.
Some of the missed throws, though, like his first, behind George Kittle, were fairly egregious. But again, it’s a tough situation for a rookie. Kyle Shanahan acknowledged that after the game.
“We have packages in for him, but the game plan wasn’t built for him,” Shanahan said. “You do the openers and all the second-half adjustments but didn’t really realize that Jimmy was gonna come out until the last minute, so we had to make some moves on the fly, do some stuff that he was comfortable with. Thought he got better as it went.”
The review was a mixed bag. Essentially Shanahan loved what Lance did with his feet, but had acres of improvement as a passer.
In that second half, Lance went 9-for-18 for 157 yards and two passing touchdowns, along with seven carries for 41 yards.
“Some good, some bad. I thought he went in there for the most part — he got thrown in not expecting to get in — thought he ran the ball well,” Shanahan said. “Hit some passes, obviously missed some passes, was in a tough situation there where we were down two scores. Did a good job moving the chains a couple of times with his legs. But looked like a typical first game.”
But there’s a brand of tough love that Shanahan has perfected, and he also made sure top point out that Lance wasn’t free of criticism because he was a rookie.
“Trey’s done a good job, looks like he’s getting better each week but that’s why he’s the number two quarterback,” Shanahan said.
Again, tough love.
But the wider view is that this was Lance’s first real game.
As has been shown around the league, rookie quarterbacks struggle. In some games, they struggle more often than they don’t, and vice versa.
But in Shanahan’s assessment, it looked like a rookie with a lot of talent.
” It was good for him to take us down and score and drive there and the end, but it takes some time to play in this league, what you guys have seen throughout [the league],” Shanahan said. “It’s about knowing where to get rid of the ball, when to try to make those plays, when to check it down and have other guys do it for you, when to hang in the pocket, when to escape the pocket and he got a lot of real NFL game experience with that today and hopefully he’ll get better from it.”