Trey Lance’s unlucky path to the present is unlike any “draft bust” story we’ve seen

Sometimes it happens ***. Sometimes, a continuous wave of goons destroys things before you can even get up from the ground. Trey Lance’s professional football career falls into the latter area. Just two years after the San Francisco 49ers traded three first-round picks to select Lance with the third overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, his career with the team came to an end. The 49ers announced Wednesday that Lance will be Third series Quarterback behind Sam Darnold and current freshman Brock Purdy.

The fact that Lance plays on third line isn’t entirely surprising given that his play in the preseason was mediocre at best, but the trajectory here is really unlike any other “draft bust” story we’ve seen. The most interesting way to track Lance’s career up to this point is through first-hand in-game attempts, including the NFL pre-season — which dates back to high school.

2017: Trey Lance has 99 pass attempts

Lance attended Marshall Senior High School in Marshall, Minnesota, where he did not get the starting quarterback job until his senior year. After considering a position change to wide receiver or defensive back in the FBS school, Lance committed to play quarterback at North Dakota State where he was immediately redshirted before appearing in two games as a freshman.

2018-2019: 288 pass attempts (387 career attempts)

After a redshirt season, Lance started 16 games for North Dakota State and threw 28 touchdowns to zero (!) interceptions to go along with his 2,786 receiving yards and 9.7 yards per attempt. The physical skills that made him a sought-after player in college football with very little experience on the field began to materialize. Lance led the Bison to the FCS National Championship game, winning the game and being named Most Valuable Player, ending a championship-packed season – and putting him firmly on the radar of an NFL that was infatuated with a quarterback with seemingly limitless upward potential. .

2020: 30 success attempts (417 career attempts)

epidemic. That annoying, annoying epidemic. 2020 has been a difficult year for the entire world, and the effects of the pandemic have spilled over into the world of sports (no matter how much people want to act like it’s not real!). While some of the larger FBS conferences have had their seasons on and on, a lot of the smaller college conferences and programs have had to shut things down.

That specific experience wasn’t unique to Lance, as the careers of thousands of college football players were halted by the pandemic, but Lance was the only one. quarterback He is described as a high-level draft pick who did not play much during the final season of his career.

North Dakota State managed to schedule one game against Central Arkansas – a game in which Lance completed only 15 of his 30 pass attempts, but added two touchdowns on the ground with 143 yards. In this way, his college career ended with 17 starts. Between high school and college, Lance has only started 26 games. For comparison, Trevor Lawrence has played 40 games with Clemson alone.

However, Lance’s stock was high enough that it didn’t make sense to return to North Dakota. He ended up declaring for the draft and opting out of the spring season with his college team.

2021: 112 pass attempts (529 career attempts)

The 49ers traded three first-round picks to draft Lance third overall. The plan from the start with Lance was to have him play in the preseason and then sit behind Jimmy Garoppolo so the 49ers could accomplish two things at once: compete for the Super Bowl and develop their newly drafted quarterback. Lance was even able to start two regular season games as a starter while Garoppolo suffered an injury.

At the time, it seemed like they were on the right track. The 49ers made it to the NFC Championship game before losing narrowly to the eventual Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams. Even though they didn’t make it to the Super Bowl, they got far enough to show that they’ve built a legitimate competitor around Lance if he’s able to take the next step.

Lance played limited action, throwing 41 tackles in the preseason and another 71 in the regular season, but this was part of a plan that seemed logical enough at the time.

2022: 46 pass attempts (575 career attempts)

that’s it! It’s Lance’s time to shine and play a full season as a midfielder For the first time since 2019! He had a much smaller preseason workload in 2022, throwing just 15 tackles before taking over as the 49ers’ starting offense. This was an opportunity for Kyle Shanahan to revolutionize his attack with a midfielder who could pressure defenses with physical talent through the air and on the ground.

It didn’t last very long. The 49ers lost their season opener to the Chicago Bears in the monsoon as it was hard to judge anyone’s performance. The following week, Lance broke his leg in a game against the Seahawks – putting Garoppolo back in the lineup.

Now, everyone knows what happened here. Garoppolo was injured again, making seventh round rookie Brock Purdy the starting quarterback. Purdy caught fire and played well enough to help get the 49ers offense back into the NFC Championship game against the Eagles before an elbow injury ended their chance to actually compete with the Eagles on the field. Purdy, Lance and former New York Jets first-round selection Sam Darnold will enter the offseason as the main trio of 49ers quarterbacks.

2023: 33 pass attempts (608 career attempts)

present day. Lance had a patchy camp and training camp, which led to him being the third-string quarterback behind Purdy and Darnold. Purdy was the starting quarterback no matter how good the offense was in the back half last season, but it looks like Lance has a real chance to compete with Darnold as the No. 2 quarterback for the 49ers.

For whatever reason, San Francisco decided to give Darnold the nod, effectively ending Lance’s career with the 49ers after two seasons after they burned out three first-round picks to get him. Lance is likely to play in the final pre-season game this weekend, but so far, Lance has been ruled out 608 passes (including pre-season) in the live game environment. For reference, five NFL quarterbacks (Tom Brady, Justin Herbert, Patrick Mahomes, Kirk Cousins, Joe Burrow) had over 600 pass attempts last season alone. Three college players (Will Rogers, Kyle Ventress, and Austin Reed) have also reached this mark.

Lance has not played a small amount of professional soccer. He didn’t play much football at all. There may be a world where Lance gets potential reps in the first round and still struggles, but in reality there were completely unexpected and unlucky things that happened to him that undoubtedly affected his development up to this point.

The pandemic, being recruited into a team that didn’t actually need his services, a broken leg and the emergence of Brooke Purdy are things that kind of happened to Lance. Life can be random in this way, and unexpected events get in everyone’s way – some see more roadblocks than others. Fortunately for Lance, he is still 23 years old and his contract wouldn’t be too expensive if the team were interested in developing him. But at the end of the day, he really needs to play football. There’s no place for him to be in the NFL right now, except for several injuries.

So, for the time being, Lance is put on ice and followed by a legacy akin to Black Cats and Broken Mirrors. Sometimes, it happens.