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Steve Young understood what then-San Francisco 49ers head coach Bill Walsh was doing when he traded for the then-25-year-old quarterback. Not only was he getting his quarterback of the future, but he was also adding some competition behind starter Joe Montana.
Walsh believed the competition would make both quarterbacks better, and it did. It may have been awkward for both players, but it motivated them to strive for excellence—Montana wanting to hold onto his job and Young wanting to take over. Young calls it “fruitful awkwardness.”
Once again, the 49ers are preparing for a quarterback transition. Jimmy Garoppolo, the team’s starter for the past four-and-a-half seasons, will likely be traded this offseason. That will allow last year’s No. 3 overall pick, Trey Lance, to step into the starting role.
What’s the plan for Lance once Garoppolo is gone? Young believes the 49ers need to bring in an experienced veteran for the quarterback room, ensuring their young quarterback still has someone he can rely on for advice.
“I think Trey is so raw,” Young said on KNBR’s Tolbert, Krueger & Brooks. “And I told you this a couple of weeks ago when I watched him … with the number of snaps he’s had in college, it should be very obvious to all of us that there’s just not the pure number of snaps, and it’s so much about — I’ll call it metering the position, just all of it that you figure out in college from playing tough ball games. The fact is that didn’t happen very much. So … we’re going to witness his growth. And who’s going to [help with] the growth?
“I’m a big fan of [putting] somebody around you that can push you. So, I’m not looking to not do that, but more than anything, he needs someone older who can tell him ‘this matters’ or ‘this doesn’t matter.’ ‘You better be on this one,’ and if you’re not on this one, teach him how to study and how to memorize, and how to [have] reflexive recall, so that everything that comes out of him is reflexive, and he doesn’t have to think about it.”
Young believes that with repetitive reps and study, Lance could evolve into a great starter for the 49ers. However, he still needs that veteran presence in the quarterback room to rely on, to steer him in the right direction when he makes a mistake. Lance will barely be 22 years old when the 2022 season starts. There is no doubt that he will make mistakes.
Lance has further to go than someone like Joe Burrow, who had two full seasons as a starting college quarterback before being drafted into the NFL. Lance started one season and then played in one game in the 15 months before being drafted. He was always considered a project with a high ceiling. That’s why he sat behind Garoppolo for nearly the entirety of his rookie season.
Lance is in a good situation, though. This season proved he is being dropped into a roster that is ready to compete for championships right now.
Young added, “This is a team, this is a roster, that can win Super Bowls, and you’ve seen it. It is absolutely a roster that we should be the best passing game, the best running game, and that middle nine defenders we have? Top of the league. So, let’s go do this. Take a few months off, [then] let’s go do this.”
You can listen to the entire conversation with Young below.
With the 2021 season officially in the books, the Trey Lance era is now expected to be a matter of months (if not weeks) away for the San Francisco 49ers. And when he eventually takes over as the team’s starting quarterback, his teammates will already have a good idea of what to expect, although they are also eager to see exactly what everything will look like once Lance gets fully settled into his NFL career.
Monday brought a number of year-end media sessions for 49ers players, during which several of them reflected on what they saw from Lance throughout his first season with the team after being selected with the third overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. Fans got to see a limited amount of Lance over the course of the season, as he appeared in six games (two starts) and
San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk’s season ended much better than it started. Yes, he suffered through the most difficult loss of his young NFL career, but he was also a bigger part of the offense compared to those earlier weeks.
Aiyuk managed just six receiving yards through Week 2, prompting many to question whether he was in head coach Kyle Shanahan’s doghouse. It turned out there were things to be fixed, and after some talks with his head coach, Aiyuk emerged from that metaphorical doghouse as a better player and became a significant contributor down the stretch.
Some questioned whether coaches were disappointed with how Aiyuk returned to the team after an impressive rookie campaign. He led the team in receiving yards with 748 as a rookie and
Things didn’t look so hot for the San Francisco 49ers in October. The team was coming off a four-game losing streak, and their lofty postseason hopes looked more like wishful thinking. Then the season turned around. The Niners went on a run, and in the final week of the regular season, clinched a playoff berth.
That run, paired with the upset win against the NFC East champion Dallas Cowboys in the opening round of the playoffs, has given the 49ers a lot of confidence. The team believes it can beat anyone. However, the next task isn’t an easy one. San Francisco will have to knock off the Green Bay Packers this weekend at Lambeau Field if it hopes to reach the NFC Championship Game for the second time in three seasons.
Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young wouldn’t
There are a number of striking similarities between the situation the 49ers have at quarterback with Jimmy Garoppolo and rookie Trey Lance and what the Kansas City Chiefs faced in 2017 with Alex Smith and Patrick Mahomes. But while it remains to be seen if Lance can approach the type of success Mahomes has had in the NFL, it sounds like the 49ers at least got the same thing from Garoppolo that Mahomes got from Smith in terms of mentorship.
As was the case with Garoppolo in 2021, Smith was a multi-year starter who suddenly found his future with his team in doubt when the Chiefs traded up to select a first-round quarterback (Mahomes) in 2017. And like Garoppolo, Smith held down the starting job while the rookie waited his turn.
While some veteran quarterbacks in
