Trey Lance’s 49ers career began at 5:41 p.m. Thursday. He is officially on the clock to end their Lombardi Trophy drought.
But perhaps not so fast.
Lance, who turns 21 on May 9, is a young and relatively unproven product from North Dakota State who could use his rookie season learning behind incumbent starter Jimmy Garoppolo.
Or, Lance’s 6-foot-4, 224-pound frame is too irresistible to hold back and he’s immediately installed into coach Kyle Shanahan’s playoff-caliber team.
Lance beat out Alabama’s Mac Jones and Ohio State’s Justin Fields, the two quarterbacks who faced off in January’s College Football Playoffs national championship game that Alabama won.
Another quarterback option the 49ers considered: Aaron Rodgers, the Green Bay Packers’ reigning NFL MVP who thought a trade home to Northern California was in the works Wednesday, Fox Sports’ Trey Wingo reported.
Ending the 49ers’ 26-year Super Bowl drought is a task neither Jimmy Garoppolo nor 19 other starting quarterbacks have accomplished since Steve Young produced the 49ers’ fifth Super Bowl win.
In that 1994 training camp with the 49ers was Lance’s father, Carlton, who auditioned for two weeks as a safety.
Trey Lance has a championship to his credit, albeit at the FCS level from the 2019 season in his only full action with the Bison. Lance played only one game last fall as the program opted out amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Winning a Super Bowl won’t be the only pressure Lance faces whenever he unseats Garoppolo, the embattled incumbent whose future has grown more tenuous each month and each injury since the 2019 team’s Super Bowl loss.
More pressure comes from having to live up to the price he cost the 49ers from a March 26 blockbuster trade, when they jumped up from Nos. 12 to 3 at a franchise-mortgaging cost (first-round picks each of the next three years plus a 2022 third-rounder to the Miami Dolphins).
“I’m happy we’re going to get one that we like, that we’ve done it right and I hope the fans are happy with it,” coach Kyle Shanahan said Monday about his quarterback pursuit. “But the key is, ultimately, they’re going to be happy based off how we do in the future, not how they feel that night, whether they won the arguments with their friends or things like that.”
As for Garoppolo’s future, it rests either as a trade candidate or as a jaded captain intent on overcoming injuries for one last hurrah with the 49ers.
Speaking of trade candidates, the 49ers hit up the Green Bay Packers on Wednesday to see if they could pry loose Aaron Rodgers, NFL Network reported. Rodgers, the reigning NFL MVP and a Chico native, has been rumored for weeks about a potential leap away from Lambeau.
This draft saw Lance as the third quarterback taken, after Trevor Lawrence and Zach Wilson, as scripted, went 1-2 to the Jacksonville Jaguars and the New York Jets.
In trading up to No. 3, Shanahan and general manager John Lynch received the endorsement to do so by 49ers CEO Jed York, and the bigger ask may have been to retain Garoppolo, who has a no-trade clause and is slated to make $25 million this year.
Lance is the eighth quarterback drafted in 49ers’ history with a first-round pick, and previous choices at No. 3 overall were Y.A. Tittle (1951) and John Brodie (1957). The 49ers have drafted 27 quarterbacks since 1970, with Joe Montana being the only one to make the Hall of Fame and Pro Bowl as a 49er.
Lance is their highest-drafted quarterback since Alex Smith was picked No. 1 overall in 2005, ahead of Rodgers.
“I’m very intrigued by the young man. But I, too, don’t feel like we’ve seen enough out of him,” former 49ers quarterback Jeff Garcia said last week. “He’s got prototypical great size, great athletic ability, can run, seems like a great decision-maker. He had a heck of a year statistically what could do with his arms and legs. But against lesser competition at a smaller school level.”
Here are other noteworthy mentions about Lance, as listed in last week’s profile:
— Led North Dakota State to the FCS national championship his lone full season, in 2019, and he did so with astonishing stats. He passed for 28 touchdowns with no interceptions en route to 2,786 yards; he ran for 1,100 yards and 14 touchdowns.
— He played only one game last fall because of NDSU’s opt-out schedule. Lance improved to 17-0 as a NDSU starter with that win over Central Arkansas (149 passing yards, two TDs; 143 rushing yards, two TDs). He never faced FBS competition in college.
— First freshman to win the FCS’ Walter Payton Award, which the 49ers’ Garoppolo won in 2013 at Eastern Illinois.
— Wasn’t heavily recruited out of Marshall High (150 miles southwest of Minneapolis) and was asked by the University of Minnesota to play safety.
— Would be second North Dakota State Bison to go in the draft’s top-three (Carson Wentz, No. 2 in 2016 to Philadelphia). Only five quarterbacks from non-FBS schools have been drafted in the first round since 1979.
— In the FCS title win over James Madison, Lance had 30 carries for 166 yards while completing 6-of-10 passes for 72 yards. (Possible 49ers’ comparisons: Colin Kaepernick rushing for 181 yards in his playoff debut against Green Bay, and Jimmy Garoppolo completing 6-of-8 passes in a January 2019 NFC title win over the Packers.)
— Trey Lance, after his initial pro day March 12: “Whatever organization I go to, they know what they’re going to get with me, and I’m going be absolutely as ready as I possibly can Week 1 to go. I’m a competitor, first and foremost, so I’m going to compete for that spot regardless of where I’m at or what the situation is.”
