The 49ers named their six team captains on Wednesday but none of their quarterbacks made the cut.
It’s a fact that points to San Francisco’s unique QB situation. Trey Lance is about to enter his first season as San Francisco’s starter, while Jimmy Garoppolo — their longtime team leader and starter — has been relegated to a backup role.
Lance was asked about not being named a captain after news broke. He said that while it’s a goal of his, he has no issue with it.
“Obviously that’s a goal of mine but I don’t think you can look at any six of those guys and say ‘this guy’s a bozo,’” Lance said. “All have played football at a very high level. Situations are different. I’m excited. I voted for every single one of those guys so I think each and every one of them deserves it. It’s definitely a goal of mine moving forward, but those guys have all proved it. That’s what this league is all about.”
For what it’s worth, Lance and Deebo Samuel just missed the cut as team captains. The NFL only allows six captains to go out to the field for the pregame coin toss.
“He was seventh, Deebo was eight,” Kyle Shanahan said of where they ranked in the captain voting. “That’s why I mentioned his name on accident. We just wanted to go with six, they don’t allow eight at the coin toss I don’t believe. It’s also his first year starting for us, but there’s not many rookies end up being the captains. I know this is his second year but he’s a rookie for us in terms of it’s his first time being starting quarterback.
“We got a lot of people we treat like captains and I respect the hell out of our captains and our team does obviously too cause they voted on them, but that’s not everything to me at all.”
Here’s the list of captains per the 49ers:
LB Fred Warner – 3rd season as captain
LT Trent Williams – 3rd season as captain in SF, previously a captain for Washington (2011-2017)
TE George Kittle – 5th season as captain
S Jimmie Ward – 2nd season as captain
DL Arik Armstead – 3rd season as captain
DL Nick Bosa – 1st season as captain